Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Song of degrees.

¹ ¶ Unto thee I lift up mine eyes, O thou that dwellest in the heavens.

² Behold, as the eyes of slaves look unto the hand of their masters and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so our eyes wait upon the LORD our God, until he shall have mercy upon us.

³ Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us, for we are exceedingly weary of being held in contempt.

⁴ Our soul is exceedingly weary of the scorning of those that are at ease and of the contempt of the proud.

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

¹⁷ Dost thou not see what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁸ The sons gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their 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 Shall they provoke me to anger? said the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?

²⁰ Therefore thus hath the Lord GOD said: Behold, my 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 hath the LORD of the hosts, the God of Israel said: Add your burnt offerings upon your sacrifices and eat flesh.

²² For I did not speak unto your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices:

²³ But this thing I commanded them, saying, Hear my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the way that I have commanded you that it may be well unto you.

²⁴ But they did not hearken, nor incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels in the imagination 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. I have even sent unto you all my slaves, the prophets, daily rising up early and sending them;

²⁶ yet they did not hearken unto me, nor incline their ear, but hardened their neck: they did worse than their fathers.

⁷ ¶ Do ye look on things after the outward appearance? If anyone trusts to himself that he is Christ’s, let him of himself think this again, that as he is Christ’s, even so we are Christ’s.

⁸ For though I should glory somewhat more of our authority, which the Lord has given us for edification, and not for your destruction, I shall not be ashamed,

⁹ That I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters.

¹⁰ For his letters, they say, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.

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