Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

142 I cried unto the Lord with my voice; with my voice unto the Lord did I make my supplication.

² I poured out my complaint before Him; I laid before Him my trouble.

³ When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then Thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me.

⁴ I looked on my right hand and beheld, but there was no man that would know me. Refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul.

⁵ I cried unto Thee, O Lord; I said, “Thou art my refuge 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 compass me about, for Thou shalt deal bountifully with me.”

5 Hear ye this word which I take up against you, even a lamentation, O house of Israel:

² The virgin of Israel is fallen; she shall no more rise. She is forsaken upon her land; there is none to raise her up.

³ For thus saith the Lord God: “The city that went out by a thousand shall be left a hundred, and that which went forth by a hundred shall be left ten to the house of Israel.”

⁴ For thus saith the Lord unto the house of Israel: “Seek ye Me, and ye shall live;

⁵ but seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal, and pass not 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 none to quench it in Bethel—

⁷ ye who turn judgment to wormwood, and leave off righteousness in the earth!”

⁸ Seek Him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night, who calleth for the waters of the sea and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is His name,

⁹ who strengtheneth the despoiled against the strong, so that the despoiled shall come against the fortress.

²⁷ And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews who were from 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 who teacheth all men everywhere against the people and the law and this place, and furthermore brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place.”

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

³⁰ And all the city was moved and the people ran together, and they took Paul and dragged him out of the temple; and forthwith the doors were shut.

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

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

³³ Then the chief captain came near, and took him and commanded that he be bound with two chains, and demanded who he was and what he had done.

³⁴ And some cried one thing, some another, among the multitude. And when he could learn nothing with certainty because of the tumult, he commanded him to be carried into the castle.

³⁵ And when Paul came upon the stairs, so it was that he had to be borne by 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 about to be led into the castle, he said unto the chief captain, “May I speak unto thee?” And he said, “Canst thou speak Greek?

³⁸ Art not thou that Egyptian who prior to these days madest an uproar and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men who were murderers?”

³⁹ But Paul said, “I am a man who am a Jew of Tarsus, a city of Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city; and I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people.”