Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

23 On the first day of the week, a psalm for David. The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof: the world, and all they that dwell therein.

² For he hath founded it upon the seas; and hath prepared it upon the rivers.

³ Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord: or who shall stand in his holy place?

⁴ The innocent in hands, and clean of heart, who hath not taken his soul in vain, nor sworn deceitfully to his neighbour.

⁵ He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and mercy from God his Saviour.

⁶ This is the generation of them that seek him, of them that seek the face of the God of Jacob.

⁷ Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates: and the King of Glory shall enter in.

⁸ Who is this King of Glory? the Lord who is strong and mighty: the Lord mighty in battle.

⁹ Lift up your gates, O ye princes, and be ye lifted up, O eternal gates: and the King of Glory shall enter in.

¹⁰ Who is this King of Glory? the Lord of hosts, he is the King of Glory.

¹⁷ Gather up thy shame out of the land, thou that dwellest in a siege.

¹⁸ For thus saith the Lord: Behold I will cast away far off the inhabitants of the land at this time: and I will afflict them, so that they may be found.

¹⁹ Woe is me for my destruction, my wound is very grievous. But I said: Truly this is my own evil, and I will bear it.

²⁰ My tabernacle is laid waste, all my cords are broken: my children are gone out from me, and they are not: there is none to stretch forth my tent any more, and to set up my curtains.

²¹ Because the pastors have done foolishly, and have not sought the Lord: therefore have they not understood, and all their flock is scattered.

²² Behold the sound of a noise cometh, a great commotion out of the land of the north: to make the cities of Juda a desert, and a dwelling for dragons.

²³ I know, O Lord, that the way of a man is not his: neither is it in a man to walk, and to direct his steps.

²⁴ Correct me, O Lord, but yet with judgement: and not in fury, lest thou bring me to nothing.

²⁵ Pour out thy indignation upon the nations that have not known thee, and upon the provinces that have not called upon thy name: because they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have destroyed his glory.

¹⁶ Now whilst Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred within him, seeing the city wholly given to idolatry.

¹⁷ He disputed, therefore, in the synagogue with the Jews, and with them that served God, and in the marketplace, every day with them that were there.

¹⁸ And certain philosophers of the Epicureans and of the Stoics disputed with him; and some said: What is it, that this word sower would say? But others: He seemeth to be a setter forth of new gods; because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.

¹⁹ And taking him, they brought him to the Areopagus, saying: May we know what this new doctrine is, which thou speakest of?

²⁰ For thou bringest in certain new things to our ears. We would know therefore what these things mean.

²¹ (Now all the Athenians, and strangers that were there, employed themselves in nothing else, but either in telling or in hearing some new thing.)

²² But Paul standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious.

²³ For passing by, and seeing your idols, I found an altar also, on which was written: To the unknown God. What therefore you worship, without knowing it, that I preach to you:

²⁴ God, who made the world, and all things therein; he, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;

²⁵ Neither is he served with men's hands, as though he needed any thing; seeing it is he who giveth to all life, and breath, and all things:

²⁶ And hath made of one, all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times, and the limits of their habitation.

²⁷ That they should seek God, if happily they may feel after him or find him, although he be not far from every one of us:

²⁸ For in him we live, and move, and are; as some also of your own poets said: For we are also his offspring.

²⁹ Being therefore the offspring of God, we must not suppose the divinity to be like unto gold, or silver, or stone, the graving of art, and device of man.

³⁰ And God indeed having winked at the times of this ignorance, now declareth unto men, that all should everywhere do penance.

³¹ Because he hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in equity, by the man whom he hath appointed; giving faith to all, by raising him up from the dead.