Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

88 O LORD, God of My Salvation, I cry day and night before You.

² Let my prayer enter into Your presence. Incline Your ear to my cry.

³ For my soul is filled with evils and my life draws near to the grave.

⁴ I am counted among those who go down to the pit; and am as a man without strength,

⁵ Free among the dead, like the fatally wounded laying in the grave when You remember no more; and they are cut off from Your hand.

⁶ You have laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deep.

⁷ Your indignation lies upon me; and You have troubled me with all Your waves. Selah.

⁸ You have put away my acquaintances far from me and made me to be abhorred by them. I am shut up and cannot get out.

⁹ My eye is sorrowful through my affliction. LORD, I call daily upon You. I stretch out my hands to You.

¹⁰ Will You show a miracle to the dead? Or shall the dead rise and praise You? Selah.

¹¹ Shall Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave, or Your faithfulness in destruction?

¹² Shall Your wondrous works be known in the dark; and Your righteousness in the land of oblivion?

¹³ But to You I have cried, O LORD, and my prayer shall come before You early.

¹⁴ LORD, why do You reject my soul and hide Your face from me?

¹⁵ I am afflicted and at the point of death. From youth I have doubted, suffering Your terrors.

¹⁶ Your indignations go over me and Your fear has cut me off.

¹⁷ They came all around me daily like water and encircled me altogether.

¹⁸ You have put away my lovers and friends from me. My acquaintances hid themselves. A Psalm to give instruction, of Ethan the Ezrahite

¹⁹ ‘Also, when a woman shall have a discharge, and her issue in her flesh shall be blood, she shall be isolated for seven days. And whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening.

²⁰ ‘And whatever she lies upon in her impurity shall be unclean. And everything that she sits upon shall be unclean.

²¹ ‘Also, whoever touches her bed shall wash his clothes, and wash himself with water, and shall be unclean until the evening.

²² ‘And whoever touches anything that she sat upon shall wash his clothes, and wash himself in water, and shall be unclean until the evening,

²³ ‘so that whether he touches her bed or anything upon which she sat, he shall be unclean until the evening.

²⁴ ‘And if a man lies with her, and her impurity touches him, he shall be unclean for seven days. And all the whole bed upon which he lies shall be unclean.

²⁵ ‘Also, when a woman’s discharge of blood runs for a long time in addition to the time of her impurity (that is, when she has a discharge longer than her impurity), all the days of the discharge of her uncleanness she shall be unclean, as in the time of her impurity.

²⁶ ‘Every bed upon which she lies (as long as her discharge lasts) shall be to her as the bed of her impurity. And whatever she sits upon shall be unclean, as her uncleanness when she is isolated.

²⁷ ‘And whoever touches these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes, and wash himself in water, and shall be unclean until the evening.

²⁸ ‘But if she is cleansed of her discharge, then she shall count seven days. And afterward, she shall be clean.

²⁹ ‘And on the eighth day, she shall take two turtledoves, or two young pigeons, and bring them to the Priest at the door of the Tabernacle of the Congregation.

³⁰ ‘And the Priest shall make a Sin Offering of the one, and of the other a Burnt Offering. And the Priest shall make an atonement for her before the LORD, for the issue of her uncleanness.

³¹ ‘Thus shall you separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness, so that they do not die in their uncleanness if they defile My Tabernacle that is among them.

9 Now, as far as the ministry to the Saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you.

² For I know your readiness of mind, of which I boast to the Macedonians myself, saying that Achaia was prepared a year ago. And your zeal has incited many.

³ Now, I have sent the brothers (lest our boasting over you should be in vain in this matter), that you (as I have said) be ready.

⁴ Or else perhaps the Macedonians might come with me and find you unprepared, so that we (and not you) should be ashamed by my constant boasting.

⁵ Therefore, I thought it necessary to exhort the brothers to come to you beforehand, and to finish your previously-promised blessing, that it might be ready and be received as a blessing (not with greed).