Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

To the chief Musician. On stringed instruments: an instruction. Of David; when the Ziphites came, and said to Saul, Is not David hiding himself with us?

54 O God, by thy name save me, and by thy strength do me justice.

² O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth.

³ For strangers are risen up against me, and the violent seek after my life: they have not set God before them. Selah.

⁴ Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is among them that uphold my soul.

⁵ He will requite evil to mine enemies: in thy truth cut them off.

⁶ I will freely sacrifice unto thee; I will praise thy name, O Jehovah, because it is good.

⁷ For he hath delivered me out of all trouble; and mine eye hath seen [its desire] upon mine enemies.

⁵ And the king of Assyria overran the whole land, and went up against Samaria, and besieged it three years.

⁶ In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and by the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

⁷ And so it was, because the children of Israel had sinned against Jehovah their God, who had brought them up out of the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods;

⁸ and they walked in the statutes of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed from before the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, which they had made.

⁹ And the children of Israel did secretly against Jehovah their God things that were not right; and they built them high places in all their cities, from the watchmen's tower to the fortified city.

¹⁰ And they set them up columns and Asherahs on every high hill and under every green tree;

¹¹ and there they burned incense on all the high places, as did the nations that Jehovah had carried away from before them, and they wrought wicked things to provoke Jehovah to anger;

¹² and they served idols, as to which Jehovah had said to them, Ye shall not do this thing.

¹³ And Jehovah testified against Israel and against Judah, by all the prophets, all the seers, saying, Turn from your evil ways, and keep my commandments, my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you through my servants the prophets.

¹⁴ But they would not hear, and hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, who did not believe in Jehovah their God.

¹⁵ And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant which he had made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he had testified unto them; and they followed vanity and became vain, and [went] after the nations that were round about them, concerning whom Jehovah had charged them that they should not do like them.

¹⁶ And they forsook all the commandments of Jehovah their God, and made them molten images, two calves, and made an Asherah, and worshipped all the host of the heavens, and served Baal;

¹⁷ and they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do evil in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger.

¹⁸ Therefore Jehovah was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there remained but the tribe of Judah only.

²⁹ Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets and adorn the tombs of the just,

³⁰ and ye say, If we had been in the days of our fathers we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.

³¹ So that ye bear witness of yourselves that ye are sons of those who slew the prophets:

³² and *ye*, fill ye up the measure of your fathers.

³³ Serpents, offspring of vipers, how should ye escape the judgment of hell?

³⁴ Therefore, behold, *I* send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; and [some] of them ye will kill and crucify, and [some] of them ye will scourge in your synagogues, and will persecute from city to city;

³⁵ so that all righteous blood shed upon the earth should come upon *you*, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

³⁶ Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.

³⁷ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [the city] that kills the prophets and stones those that are sent unto her, how often would I have gathered thy children as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

³⁸ Behold, your house is left unto you desolate;

³⁹ for I say unto you, Ye shall in no wise see me henceforth until ye say, Blessed [be] he that comes in the name of [the] Lord.