Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

54 Save me, O God, by Your Name; and by Your power, judge me.

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

³ For strangers have risen up against me, and tyrants seek my soul. They have not set God before them. Selah.

⁴ Behold, God is my helper. The LORD is with those who uphold my soul.

⁵ He shall reward evil to my enemies. Oh, cut them off in Your truth!

⁶ I will sacrifice freely to You. I will praise Your Name, O LORD, because it is good.

⁷ For He has delivered me out of all trouble; and my eye has seen my desire upon my enemies. To him who excels on Neginoth: A Psalm of David, to give instruction

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

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

⁷ For when the children of Israel sinned against the LORD their God (Who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt) and feared other gods,

⁸ and walked according to the statutes of the heathen, whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel, and after those of the kings of Israel which they had made,

⁹ and the children of Israel had secretly done things that were not upright before the LORD their God, and had built high places throughout all their cities, from the watchtower to the defensed city,

¹⁰ and had made themselves images and groves upon every high hill and under every green tree,

¹¹ and burnt incense there in all the high places, as did the heathen, whom the LORD had taken away before them, and worked wicked things to anger the LORD,

¹² and served idols (of which the LORD had said to them, “You shall do no such thing.”),

¹³ nevertheless, the LORD testified to Israel, and to 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 My servants, the Prophets.”

¹⁴ Still, they would not obey, but hardened their necks (like the necks of their fathers, who did not believe in the LORD their God).

¹⁵ And they refused His Statutes and His Covenant that He made with their fathers, and His Testimonies with which He witnessed to them. And they followed vanity, and became empty, and followed the heathen who were all around them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them that they should not do like them.

¹⁶ Finally, they left all the Commandments of the LORD their God, and made themselves molten images (two calves), and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.

¹⁷ And they made their sons and daughters pass through the fire, and used witchcraft and enchantments. Indeed, they sold themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to anger Him.

¹⁸ Therefore, the LORD was exceedingly angry with Israel, and put them out of His sight. No one was left, only the tribe of Judah.

²⁹ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, Hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the Prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous,

³⁰ “and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in the blood of the Prophets.’

³¹ “So then you are witnesses to yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the Prophets.

³² “And you fill up the measure of your fathers.

³³ “O serpents! The generation of vipers! How shall you escape the damnation of Hell!

³⁴ “Therefore, behold, I send to you Prophets, and wise men, and scribes. And some of them you shall kill and crucify. And some of them you shall scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city.

³⁵ “So that upon you may come all the righteous blood that was shed upon the Earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous to the blood of Zechariah the son of Berechiah, whom you killed between the Temple and the altar.

³⁶ “Truly I say to you that all these things shall come upon this generation.

³⁷ “Jerusalem, Jerusalem; who kills the Prophets and stones those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together - as the hen gathers her chickens under her wings - and you would not!

³⁸ “Behold, your house shall be left to you desolate.

³⁹ “For I say to you, you shall not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is the One Who comes in the Name of the Lord’.”