Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

To the Overcomer on Neginoth, Maschil, A Psalm of David, when the Ziphims came and said to Saul, Does David not hide himself with us?

¹ ¶ Save me, O God, in thy name and defend me by thy valour.

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

³ For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul; they have not set God before them. Selah.

⁴ ¶ Behold, God is my helper; the Lord is with those that uphold my soul.

⁵ He shall reward evil unto my enemies; cut them off in thy truth.

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

⁷ For he has delivered me out of all trouble, and my eye has seen his desire upon my enemies.

⁵ Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land and went up to Samaria and besieged it three years.

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

⁷ ¶ For so it was that the sons of Israel had sinned against the LORD 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 walked in the statutes of the Gentiles, whom the LORD had cast out from before the sons of Israel, and in the statutes of the kings of Israel, which they had made.

⁹ And the sons of Israel had secretly done those things that were not right against the LORD their God, building themselves high places in all their cities, from the towers of the watchmen to the fenced cities.

¹⁰ And they had set themselves up images and groves in every high hill and under every green tree;

¹¹ and there they burnt incense in all the high places like the Gentiles, whom the LORD had carried away before them, and wrought wicked things to provoke the LORD to anger:

¹² serving idols, of which the LORD had said unto them, Ye shall not do this.

¹³ Yet the LORD testified against Israel and against Judah, by all the prophets and by all the seers, saying, Turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers and which I sent to you by the hand of my slaves the prophets.

¹⁴ Notwithstanding, they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, who had never believed in the LORD their God.

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

¹⁶ And they left all the commandments of the LORD their God and made themselves molten images, even two calves, and made groves and worshipped all the host of heaven 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 the LORD, to provoke him to anger.

¹⁸ Therefore, the LORD was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight; there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.

²⁹ Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the sepulchres of the righteous

³⁰ and 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 Therefore ye are witnesses unto yourselves that ye are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.

³² Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.

³³ Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the judgment of hell?

³⁴ ¶ Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them ye shall kill and crucify, {Gr. stauroo – Hang on a stake} and some of them ye shall scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city,

³⁵ that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye murdered between the temple and the altar.

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

³⁷ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that didst kill the prophets and stone those who are sent unto thee, how often I desired to gather thy children together, even 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 not see me from now on until ye shall say, Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord.