Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁹⁷ How I love your law, Lord!^[a]
    I study it all day long.
⁹⁸ Your commandment makes me wiser than my foes,
    as it is forever with me.
⁹⁹ I have more insight than all my teachers,
    because I ponder your testimonies.
¹⁰⁰ I have more understanding than my elders,
    because I keep your precepts.^(A)
101 I keep my steps from every evil path,
    that I may observe your word.
¹⁰² From your judgments I do not turn,
    for you have instructed me.
¹⁰³ How sweet to my tongue is your promise,
    sweeter than honey to my mouth!^(B)
104 Through your precepts I gain understanding;
    therefore I hate all false ways.

¹⁶ But they, our ancestors, proved to be insolent;
    they were obdurate^[a] and did not obey your commandments.
^17 (A)They refused to obey and no longer remembered
    the wonders you had worked for them.
They were obdurate and appointed a leader
    in order to return to their slavery in Egypt.
But you are a forgiving God, gracious and merciful,
    slow to anger and rich in mercy;
    you did not forsake them.
^18 (B)Though they made for themselves a molten calf,
    and proclaimed, ‘Here is your God who brought you up from Egypt,’
    and were guilty of great insults,
¹⁹ Yet in your great mercy
    you did not forsake them in the desert.
By day the column of cloud did not cease to lead them on their journey,
    by night the column of fire did not cease to light the way they were to travel.
^20 (C)Your good spirit you bestowed on them,
    to give them understanding;
Your manna you did not withhold from their mouths,
    and you gave them water in their thirst.
^21 (D)Forty years in the desert you sustained them:
    they did not want;
Their garments did not become worn,
    and their feet did not swell.
^22 (E)You gave them kingdoms and peoples,
    which you divided among them as border lands.
They possessed the land of Sihon, king of Heshbon,
    and the land of Og, king of Bashan.
^23 (F)You made their children as numerous as the stars of the heavens,
    and you brought them into the land
    which you had commanded their ancestors to enter and possess.
²⁴ The children went in to possess the land;
    you humbled before them the Canaanite inhabitants
    and gave them into their power,
Their kings and the peoples of the land,
    to do with them as they wished.
^25 (G)They captured fortified cities and fertile land;
    they took possession of houses filled with all good things,
Cisterns already dug, vineyards, olive groves,
    and fruit trees in abundance.
They ate and had their fill,
    fattened and feasted on your great goodness.
^26 (H)But they were contemptuous and rebelled against you:
    they cast your law behind their backs.
They murdered your prophets
    who bore witness against them to bring them back to you:
    they were guilty of great insults.
^27 (I)Therefore you gave them into the power of their enemies,
    who oppressed them.
But in the time of their oppression they would cry out to you,
    and you would hear them from heaven,
And according to your great mercy give them saviors
    to deliver them from the power of their enemies.
²⁸ As soon as they had relief,
    they would go back to doing evil in your sight.
Again you abandoned them to the power of their enemies,
    who crushed them.
Once again they cried out to you, and you heard them from heaven
    and delivered them according to your mercy, many times over.
^29 (J)You bore witness against them,
    to bring them back to your law.
But they were insolent
    and would not obey your commandments;
They sinned against your ordinances,
    which give life to those who keep them.
They turned stubborn backs, stiffened their necks,
    and would not obey.
³⁰ You were patient with them for many years,
    bearing witness against them through your spirit, by means of your prophets;
Still they would not listen.
    Therefore you delivered them into the power of the peoples of the lands.
³¹ Yet in your great mercy you did not completely destroy them
    and did not forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God.