Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

23 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

² He makes me to rest in green pasture and leads me by the still waters.

³ He restores my soul and leads me in the paths of righteousness, for His Name’s sake.

⁴ Indeed, though I should walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For You are with me. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me in the sight of my adversaries. You anoint my head with oil; and my cup runs over.

⁶ Doubtless, kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I shall remain in the House of the LORD forever. A Psalm of David.

¹⁷ Gather up your wares out of the land, O you who dwells in the strong place.

¹⁸ For thus says the LORD: “Behold, at this time I will throw as with a sling the inhabitants of the land and will trouble them. And they shall find it so.”

¹⁹ Woe is me for my destruction and my grievous plague! But I thought, “Still, it is my sorrow and I will bear it.”

²⁰ My tent is destroyed, and all my cords are broken. My children have gone from me and are no more. There is no one to spread out my tent anymore, and to set up my curtains.

²¹ For the shepherds have become beasts and have not sought the LORD. Therefore, have they no understanding. And all the flocks of their pastures are scattered.

²² Behold, the noise of the report has come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, a den of dragons.

²³ O LORD, I know that the way of man is not in himself, nor is it in man to walk and to direct his steps.

²⁴ O LORD, correct me, but with judgment, not in Your anger, lest You bring me to nothing.

²⁵ Pour out Your wrath upon the heathen who do not know You, and upon the families that do not call on Your Name. For they have eaten up Jacob, and devoured him, and consumed him, and have made his habitation desolate.

¹⁶ Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, when he saw the idolatry in the city, his spirit was pricked within him.

¹⁷ Therefore he disputed daily - with the Jews in the synagogue, with the religious, and in the marketplace - with whomever he met.

¹⁸ Then some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers disputed with him. And some said, “What will this babbler say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange gods.” (because he preached Jesus to them, and the resurrection.)

¹⁹ And they took him, and brought him to Mars’ Hill, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak?

²⁰ “For you bring some strange things to our ears. Therefore, we want to know what these things mean.”

²¹ For all the Athenians (and strangers who dwelt there) gave themselves to nothing else but either telling or hearing something new.

²² Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ Hill, and said, “Men of Athens! I perceive that in all things you are very fearful of gods.

²³ “For as I passed by and observed your objects of worship, I found an altar whereupon was written, ‘TO THE UNKNOWN GOD’. Him then, Whom you ignorantly worship, I proclaim to you.

²⁴ “God - Who made the world and all things that therein are - seeing that He is Lord of Heaven and Earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.

²⁵ “Nor is He worshipped with man’s hands as though He needed anything (seeing He gives life to all, and breath, and all things).

²⁶ “And He has made, from one blood, all nations of mankind to dwell on all the face of the Earth; and has assigned the seasons (which were pre-ordained) and the boundaries of their dwellings,

²⁷ “so that they should seek the Lord; that perhaps they might have groped after Him and found Him. Though doubtless He is not far from each one of us.

²⁸ “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being, as some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His family’.

²⁹ “Therefore, since we are the family of God, we ought not to think that the Divine is like gold, or silver, or stone, sculpted by art and the invention of man.

³⁰ “God, having overlooked these times of ignorance, now admonishes all mankind, everywhere, to repent.

³¹ “Because He has appointed a Day on the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man Whom He has appointed. He has given us all this assurance by raising Him from the dead.”