Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Maschil of David; A Prayer when he was in the cave.

¹ ¶ I shall cry unto the LORD with my voice; with my voice shall I ask the LORD for mercy.

² I shall pour out my complaint before him; before him I shall tell of my trouble.

³ When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou didst know my path. In the way in which I walked have they secretly laid a snare for me.

⁴ ¶ I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no one that would know me; I had no refuge; no one cared for my soul.

⁵ I cried unto thee, O LORD; I said, Thou art my hope and my portion in the land of the living.

⁶ Attend unto my cry, for I am brought very low; deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I.

⁷ Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name; the righteous shall feast with me; when thou shalt have weaned me.

5 ¶ Hear ye this word, because I raise up a lamentation upon you, O house of Israel.

² The virgin of Israel has fallen; she shall not be able to rise again: she was forsaken upon her land; there is no one to raise her up.

³ For thus hath the Lord GOD said: The city that sent out a thousand shall have a hundred left, and that which sent forth a hundred shall have ten, in the house of Israel.

⁴ ¶ But thus hath the LORD said unto the house of Israel, Seek me, and ye shall live:

⁵ but do not seek Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and do not pass to Beersheba: for Gilgal shall surely go into captivity, and Bethel shall come to nought.

⁶ Seek the LORD, and ye shall live; lest he break out like fire in the house of Joseph and devour it, and there be no one to quench it in Bethel.

⁷ Ye who turn judgment to wormwood and leave off doing righteousness in the earth,

⁸ look unto him that makes the seven stars and Orion and turns the shadow of death into the morning and makes the day dark with night, that calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name;

⁹ that strengthens the spoiler against the strong, so that the spoiler shall come against the fortress.

²⁷ ¶ And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews, who were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people and laid hands on him,

²⁸ crying out, Men of Israel, help; this is the man that teaches everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place and further brought Greeks also into the temple and has polluted this holy place.

²⁹ (For before this they had seen Trophimus, an Ephesian, with him in the city, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple.)

³⁰ So that all the city was moved, and the people ran together; and they took Paul and drew him out of the temple, and immediately the doors were shut.

³¹ And as they went about to kill him, tidings came unto the tribunal of the company that all Jerusalem was in an uproar

³² who immediately took soldiers and centurions and ran down unto them; and when they saw the tribunal and the soldiers, they left off beating Paul.

³³ Then the tribunal came near and took him and commanded him to be bound with two chains and demanded to know who he was and what he had done.

³⁴ And some cried one thing, some another, among the multitude; and when he could not know the certainty for the tumult, he commanded him to be carried into the fortress.

³⁵ And when he came upon the stairs, so it was that he was borne of the soldiers because of the violence of the people.

³⁶ For the multitude of the people followed after, crying, Away with him.

³⁷ And as Paul was to be led into the fortress, he said unto the tribunal, May I speak unto thee? Who said, Canst thou speak Greek?

³⁸ Art not thou that Egyptian, who before these days made an uproar and led four thousand men out into the wilderness that were murderers?

³⁹ But Paul said, I am certainly a Jew, a citizen of Tarsus, a city known in Cilicia; and, I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people.