Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Song, a Psalm for the sons of Korah. To the chief Musician. Upon Mahalath Leannoth. An instruction. Of Heman the Ezrahite.

88 Jehovah, God of my salvation, I have cried by day [and] in the night before thee.

² Let my prayer come before thee; incline thine ear unto my cry.

³ For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh to Sheol.

⁴ I am reckoned with them that go down into the pit; I am as a man that hath no strength:

⁵ Prostrate among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave; whom thou rememberest no more, and who are cut off from thy hand.

⁶ Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in dark places, in the deeps.

⁷ Thy fury lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted [me] with all thy waves. Selah.

⁸ Thou hast put my familiar friends far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.

⁹ Mine eye consumeth by reason of affliction. Upon thee, Jehovah, have I called every day; I have stretched out my hands unto thee.

¹⁰ Wilt thou do wonders to the dead? shall the shades arise and praise thee? Selah.

¹¹ Shall thy loving-kindness be declared in the grave? thy faithfulness in Destruction?

¹² Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

¹³ But as for me, Jehovah, I cry unto thee, and in the morning my prayer cometh before thee.

¹⁴ Why, O Jehovah, castest thou off my soul? [why] hidest thou thy face from me?

¹⁵ I am afflicted and expiring from my youth up; I suffer thy terrors, [and] I am distracted.

¹⁶ Thy fierce anger hath gone over me; thy terrors have brought me to nought:

¹⁷ They have surrounded me all the day like water; they have compassed me about together.

¹⁸ Lover and associate hast thou put far from me: my familiar friends are darkness.

¹⁹ And if a woman have a flux, and her flux in her flesh be blood, she shall be seven days in her separation, and whoever toucheth her shall be unclean until the even.

²⁰ And everything that she lieth upon in her separation shall be unclean; and everything that she sitteth upon shall be unclean.

²¹ And whoever toucheth her bed shall wash his garments, and bathe in water, and be unclean until the even.

²² And whoever toucheth any object that she sat upon shall wash his garments, and bathe in water, and be unclean until the even.

²³ And if it be on the bed, or on anything whereon she sitteth, when he toucheth it, he shall be unclean until the even.

²⁴ And if a man lie with her at all, and the uncleanness of her separation come upon him, he shall be unclean seven days; and every bed whereon he lieth shall be unclean.

²⁵ And if a woman have her flux of blood many days out of the time of her separation, or if she have the flux beyond the time of her separation, all the days of the flux of her uncleanness shall she be as [in] the days of her separation: she is unclean.

²⁶ Every bed whereon she lieth all the days of her flux shall be unto her as the bed of her separation; and every object on which she sitteth shall be unclean, according to the uncleanness of her separation.

²⁷ And whoever toucheth them shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes, and bathe in water, and be unclean until the even.

²⁸ And if she be cleansed of her flux then she shall count seven days, and after that she shall be clean.

²⁹ And on the eighth day she shall take two turtle-doves, or two young pigeons, and bring them unto the priest, unto the entrance of the tent of meeting.

³⁰ And the priest shall offer the one as a sin-offering, and the other as a burnt-offering; and the priest shall make atonement for her before Jehovah for the flux of her uncleanness.

³¹ And ye shall separate the children of Israel from their uncleanness, that they die not in their uncleanness, when they defile my tabernacle that is in their midst.

9 For concerning the ministration which [is] for the saints, it is superfluous my writing to you.

² For I know your readiness, which I boast of as respects you to Macedonians, that Achaia is prepared since a year ago, and the zeal [reported] of you has stimulated the mass [of the brethren].

³ But I have sent the brethren, in order that our boasting about you may not be made void in this respect, in order that, as I have said, ye may be prepared;

⁴ lest haply, if Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, *we*, that we say not *ye*, may be put to shame in this confidence.

⁵ I thought it necessary therefore to beg the brethren that they would come to you, and complete beforehand your fore-announced blessing, that this may be ready thus as blessing, and not as got out of you.