Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

MEM.

⁹⁷ ¶ O how I love thy law! it is my meditation all the day.

⁹⁸ ¶ Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies, for they are eternal unto me.

⁹⁹ I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testimonies have been my meditation.

¹⁰⁰ I understand more than the elders because I keep thy precepts.

¹⁰¹ ¶ I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word.

¹⁰² ¶ I have not departed from thy judgments, for thou hast taught me.

¹⁰³ ¶ How sweet have been thy spoken words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!

¹⁰⁴ Through thy precepts I have obtained understanding; therefore I have hated every false way.

9 ¶ Now in the twenty-fourth day of this month, the sons of Israel were assembled with fasting and with sackcloth and earth upon them.

² And the seed of Israel had separated themselves from all strangers and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.

³ And they stood up in their place and read in the book of the law of the LORD their God one fourth part of the day; and another fourth part they confessed and worshipped the LORD their God.

⁴ ¶ Then stood up upon the stairs of the Levites, Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani and cried with a loud voice unto the LORD their God.

⁵ Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabniah, Sherebiah, Hodijah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah said, Stand up and bless the LORD your God for ever and ever; and blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.

⁶ Thou, O LORD, art alone; thou hast made the heavens and the heavens of the heavens, with all their host, the earth and all things that are therein, the seas and all that is therein, and thou givest life to them all; and the host of the heavens worship thee.

⁷ Thou art, O LORD, the God who didst choose Abram and didst bring him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees and didst give him the name of Abraham

⁸ and didst find his heart faithful before thee and didst make a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite, and the Girgashite, to give it, to his seed and hast performed thy word; for thou art righteous.

⁹ And thou didst see the affliction of our fathers in Egypt and didst hear their cry by the Red Sea

¹⁰ and didst show signs and wonders upon Pharaoh and on all his slaves and on all the people of his land; for thou didst know that they had dealt proudly against them. So didst thou make thee a name, as it is this day.

¹¹ And thou didst divide the sea before them so that they went through the midst of the sea on the dry land; and their persecutors thou didst throw into the deeps, as a stone into the mighty waters.

¹² Moreover, thou didst lead them by day with a pillar of cloud and by night with a pillar of fire to give them light in the way by which they should go.

¹³ Thou didst come down upon Mount Sinai and didst speak with them from heaven and didst give them right judgments and true laws, good statutes and commandments,

¹⁴ and didst make known unto them the sabbath of thy holiness and didst prescribe for them commandments, statutes, and law by the hand of Moses, thy slave.

¹⁵ And thou didst give them bread from heaven in their hunger and didst bring forth water for them out of the rock in their thirst and didst promise them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them.

²¹ ¶ submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

²² Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husband, as unto the Lord.

²³ For the husband is the head of the wife even as the Christ is head of the congregation, {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones} and it is he who gives saving health to the body.

²⁴ Therefore, as the congregation {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones} is subject unto the Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives even as the Christ also loved the congregation {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones} and gave himself for her,

²⁶ that he might sanctify and cleanse her in the washing of water by the word,

²⁷ that he might present her glorious for himself, a congregation, {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones} not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.

²⁸ So ought husbands to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loves his wife loves himself.

²⁹ For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it even as the Lord with his congregation. {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones}

³⁰ For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

³¹ For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh.

³² This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the congregation. {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones}

³³ Nevertheless, let each one of you do likewise, let each one so love his wife even as himself, and let the wife see that she reverences her husband.

6 ¶ Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.

² Honour thy father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise),

³ that it may be well with thee, and thou may live long on the earth.

⁴ And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the discipline and admonition of the Lord.

⁵ Slaves, be obedient to those that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in simplicity of your heart as unto the Christ,

⁶ not to be seen as only pleasing men, but as the slaves of the Christ, doing the will of God from within,

⁷ with good will doing service as to the Lord and not to men,

⁸ knowing that whatever good thing anyone does, the same shall they receive of the Lord, whether they are slaves or free.

⁹ And, ye masters, do the same unto them, forbearing threats, knowing that their Master and yours is also in the heavens and that he is no respecter of persons.