Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹⁰ I said in the cutting off of my days; I shall go to the gates of Sheol: I am deprived of the residue of my years.

¹¹ I said, I shall not see JAH, even JAH, in the land of the living; I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world.

¹² My dwelling place has been moved and is removed from me as a shepherd’s tent; he has cut off my life like a weaver: he has cut me off with sickness: between the day and the night thou shalt consume me.

¹³ I reckoned that I had until morning. As a lion, he broke all my bones: from the morning even unto the night thou shalt make an end of me.

¹⁴ Like a crane or a swallow, so did I complain; I mourned as a dove; I raised my eyes upward, O LORD, I am suffering violence; comfort me.

¹⁵ What shall I say? He has both spoken unto me, and he himself has done it; I shall walk softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul.

¹⁶ O Lord, even unto all those that shall live, in these fifteen years I shall proclaim the life of my spirit in them and how thou caused me to sleep, and afterwards hast given me life.

¹⁷ Behold, for peace I had great bitterness; but it has pleased thee to deliver my life from the pit of corruption, for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

¹⁸ For the grave shall not confess thee, nor shall death praise thee; nor shall those that go down into the pit wait for thy truth.

¹⁹ He who lives, he who lives, even he shall confess thee, as I do this day; the father to the sons shall make known thy truth.

²⁰ The LORD is ready to save me: therefore we will sing our psalms in the house of the LORD all the days of our life.

8 ¶ And the LORD said unto Joshua, Fear not, neither be thou dismayed; take all the people of war with thee and arise; go up to Ai. See, I have given into thy hand the king of Ai and his people and his city and his land.

² And thou shalt do to Ai and her king as thou didst unto Jericho and her king; only the spoil thereof and the cattle thereof, ye shall take for yourselves. Lay thee an ambush for the city behind it.

³ ¶ So Joshua arose and all the people of war, to go up against Ai; and Joshua chose out thirty thousand mighty men of valour and sent them away by night.

⁴ And he commanded them, saying, Behold, ye shall lie in wait against the city, even behind the city; do not go very far from the city, but all of you be ready.

⁵ And I and all the people that are with me, will approach the city; and when they come out against us, as at the first, we will flee before them

⁶ (for they will come out after us) until we have raptured them out of the city; for they will say, They flee before us as at the first. Therefore, we will flee before them.

⁷ Then ye shall rise up from the ambush and take possession of the city; for the LORD your God will deliver it into your hand.

⁸ And when ye have taken the city, ye shall set the city on fire. Ye shall do according to the word of the LORD. See, I have commanded you.

⁹ Then Joshua sent them forth, and they went to lie in ambush and abode between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of Ai; and Joshua lodged that night in the midst of the people.

¹⁰ And Joshua rose up early in the morning and numbered the people and went up he and the elders of Israel, before the people against Ai.

¹¹ And all the people of war that were with him, went up, and drew near and came before the city and pitched camp on the north side of Ai; now there was a valley between them and Ai.

¹² And he took about five thousand men and set them to lie in ambush between Bethel and Ai, on the west side of the city.

¹³ And the people, all the camp that was on the side of the north came near to the city, and their ambush on the west of the city. And Joshua went that night into the midst of the valley.

¹⁴ When the king of Ai saw it, he rose up early in the morning and made haste with the men of the city to go out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at a time appointed, before the plain; but he did not know that there was an ambush against him behind the city.

¹⁵ Then Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them and fled by the way of the wilderness.

¹⁶ And all the people that were in Ai were called together to pursue after them; and they pursued after Joshua and were raptured from the city.

¹⁷ And there was not a man left in Ai or Bethel that did not go out after Israel; and because they pursued after Israel, they left the city open.

¹⁸ Then the LORD said unto Joshua, Stretch out the spear that is in thy hand toward Ai; for I will give it into thy hand. And Joshua stretched out the spear that he had in his hand toward the city.

¹⁹ And those of the ambush arose quickly out of their place, and they ran as soon as he had stretched out his hand; and they entered into the city and took it and made haste to set the city on fire.

²⁰ And when the men of Ai looked behind them, they saw, and, behold, the smoke of the city ascended up to heaven, and they had no power to flee this way or that way; and the people that were fleeing into the wilderness turned back upon their pursuers.

²¹ Then Joshua and all Israel, seeing that those of the ambush had taken the city and that the smoke of the city ascended, they turned and slew the men of Ai.

²² And the others issued out of the city against them; so they were in the midst of Israel, some on this side and some on that side; and they smote them so that they let none of them remain or escape.

²³ ¶ And they took the king of Ai alive and brought him to Joshua.

³ For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself lest ye be wearied in your souls and faint.

⁴ ¶ Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, fighting against sin.

⁵ And ye have quite forgotten the consolation which speaks unto you as unto sons, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art reproved of him:

⁶ for whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges everyone whom he receives as a son.

⁷ If ye endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father does not chasten?

⁸ But if ye are without chastisement, of which all the sons are partakers, then ye are bastards, and not sons.

⁹ Furthermore, we have had fathers of our flesh who corrected us, and we gave them reverence; is it not much better to be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and we shall live?

¹⁰ For they verily for a few days chastened us as it seemed good unto them, but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness.

¹¹ It is true that no chastening at present seems to be cause for joy, but rather for grief; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto those who are exercised by it.

¹² Therefore, lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,

¹³ and make straight steps unto your feet, so that which is lame will not turn out of the way, but let it rather be healed.