Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
54 Unto the end, in verses, understanding for David.
2 Hear, O God, my prayer, and despise not my supplication:
3 Be attentive to me and hear me. I am grieved in my exercise; and am troubled,
4 At the voice of the enemy, and at the tribulation of the sinner. For they have cast iniquities upon me: and in wrath they were troublesome to me.
5 My heart is troubled within me: and the fear of death is fallen upon me.
6 Fear and trembling are come upon me: and darkness hath covered me.
7 And I said: Who will give me wings like a dove, and I will fly and be at rest?
8 Lo, I have gone far off flying away; and I abode in the wilderness.
9 I waited for him that hath saved me from pusillanimity of spirit, and a storm.
10 Cast down, O Lord, and divide their tongues; for I have seen iniquity and contradiction in the city.
11 Day and night shall iniquity surround it upon its walls: and in the midst thereof are labour,
12 And injustice. And usury and deceit have not departed from its streets.
13 For if my enemy had reviled me, I would verily have borne with it. And if he that hated me had spoken great things against me, I would perhaps have hidden myself from him.
14 But thou a man of one mind, my guide, and my familiar,
15 Who didst take sweetmeats together with me: in the house of God we walked with consent.
16 Let death come upon them, and let them go down alive into hell. For there is wickedness in their dwellings: in the midst of them.
17 But I have cried to God: and the Lord will save me.
18 Evening and morning, and at noon I will speak and declare: and he shall hear my voice.
19 He shall redeem my soul in peace from them that draw near to me: for among many they were with me.
20 God shall hear, and the Eternal shall humble them. For there is no change with them, and they have not feared God:
21 He hath stretched forth his hand to repay. They have defiled his covenant,
22 They are divided by the wrath Of his countenance, and his heart hath drawn near. His words are smoother than oil, and the same are darts.
23 Cast thy care upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall not suffer the just to waver for ever.
24 But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction. Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will trust in thee, O Lord.
5 And he went through all the land: and going up to Samaria, he besieged it three years.
6 And in the ninth year of Osee, the king of the Assyrians took Samaria, and carried Israel away to Assyria: and he placed them in Hala and Habor by the river of Gozan, in the cities of the Medes.
7 For so it was that the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharao king of Egypt, and they worshipped strange gods.
8 And they walked according to the way of the nations which the Lord had destroyed in the sight of the children of Israel and of the kings of Israel: because they had done in like manner.
9 And the children of Israel offended the Lord their God with things that were not right: and built them high places in all their cities from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.
10 And they made them statues and groves on every high hill, and under every shady tree:
11 And they burnt incense there upon altars after the manner of the nations which the Lord had removed from their face: and they did wicked things, provoking the Lord.
12 And they worshipped abominations, concerning which the Lord had commanded them that they should not do this thing.
13 And the Lord testified to them in Israel and in Juda by the hand of all the prophets and seers, saying: Return from your wicked ways, and keep my precepts, and ceremonies, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers: and as I have sent to you in the hand of my servants the prophets.
14 And they hearkened not, but hardened their necks like to the neck of their fathers, who would not obey the Lord their God.
15 And they rejected his ordinances and the covenant that he made with their fathers, and the testimonies which he testified against them: and they followed vanities, and acted vainly: and they followed the nations that were round about them, concerning which the Lord had commanded them that they should not do as they did.
16 And they forsook all the precepts of the Lord their God: and made to themselves two molten calves, and groves, and adored all the host of heaven: and they served Baal.
17 And consecrated their sons, and their daughters through fire: and they gave themselves to divinations, and soothsayings: and they delivered themselves up to do evil before the Lord, to provoke him.
18 And the Lord was very angry with Israel, and removed them from his sight, and there remained only the tribe of Juda.
29 Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; that build the sepulchres of the prophets, and adorn the monuments of the just,
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 Wherefore you are witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of them that killed the prophets.
32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
33 You serpents, generation of vipers, how will you flee from the judgment of hell?
34 Therefore behold I send to you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them you will put to death and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city:
35 That upon you may come all the just blood that hath been shed upon the earth, from the blood of Abel the just, even unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, whom you killed between the temple and the altar.
36 Amen I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation.
37 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered together thy children, as the hen doth gather her chickens under her wings, and thou wouldest not?
38 Behold, your house shall be left to you, desolate.
39 For I say to you, you shall not see me henceforth till you say: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
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