Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Song of degrees.

123 Unto thee do I lift up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.

² Behold, as the eyes of servants [look] unto the hand of their masters, as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so our eyes [are directed] to Jehovah our God, until he be gracious unto us.

³ Be gracious unto us, O Jehovah, be gracious unto us; for we are exceedingly filled with contempt.

⁴ Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorning of those that are at ease, with the contempt of the proud.

¹⁶ And thou, pray not for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, and make not intercession to me; for I will not hear thee.

¹⁷ Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁸ The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger.

¹⁹ Is it I whom they provoke to anger? saith Jehovah; is it not themselves, to the shame of their own face?

²⁰ Therefore thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, mine anger and my fury shall be poured out upon this place; upon man, and upon beast, and upon the trees of the field, and upon the fruit of the ground; and it shall burn, and shall not be quenched.

²¹ Thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt-offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.

²² For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them concerning burnt-offerings and sacrifices, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt;

²³ but I commanded them this thing, saying, Hearken unto my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.

²⁴ But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels, in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.

²⁵ Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt, unto this day, have I sent unto you all my servants the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them;

²⁶ but they have not hearkened unto me, nor inclined their ear; and they have hardened their neck: they have done worse than their fathers.

⁷ Do ye look at what concerns appearance? If any one has confidence in himself that he is of Christ, let him think this again in himself, that even as he [is] of Christ, so also [are] we.

⁸ For and if I should boast even somewhat more abundantly of our authority, which the Lord has given [to us] for building up and not for your overthrowing, I shall not be put to shame;

⁹ that I may not seem as if I was frightening you by letters:

¹⁰ because his letters, he says, [are] weighty and strong, but his presence in the body weak, and his speech naught.

¹¹ Let such a one think this, that such as we are in word by letters [when] absent, such also present in deed.