Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Song of degrees.

126 When Jehovah turned the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.

² Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with rejoicing: then said they among the nations, Jehovah hath done great things for them.

³ Jehovah hath done great things for us; [and] we are joyful.

⁴ Turn our captivity, O Jehovah, as the streams in the south.

⁵ They that sow in tears shall reap with rejoicing:

⁶ He goeth forth and weepeth, bearing seed for scattering; he cometh again with rejoicing, bearing his sheaves.

⁹ Concerning the prophets: My heart within me is broken; all my bones shake; I am like a drunken man, and like a man whom wine hath overcome; because of Jehovah, and because of the words of his holiness.

¹⁰ For the land is full of adulterers; for because of execration the land mourneth. The pastures of the wilderness are dried up; for their course is evil, and their force is not right.

¹¹ For both prophet and priest are profane: even in my house have I found their wickedness, saith Jehovah.

¹² Therefore their way shall be unto them as slippery places in the darkness; they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them in the year of their visitation, saith Jehovah.

¹³ And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria: they prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err.

¹⁴ And in the prophets of Jerusalem have I seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in falsehood, and strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that none doth return from his wickedness. They are all become unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.

¹⁵ Therefore thus saith Jehovah of hosts concerning the prophets: Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink water of gall; for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.

7 For this Melchisedec, King of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from smiting the kings, and blessed him;

² to whom Abraham gave also the tenth portion of all; first being interpreted King of righteousness, and then also King of Salem, which is King of peace;

³ without father, without mother, without genealogy; having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but assimilated to the Son of God, abides a priest continually.

⁴ Now consider how great this [personage] was, to whom [even] the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth out of the spoils.

⁵ And they indeed from among the sons of Levi, who receive the priesthood, have commandment to take tithes from the people according to the law, that is from their brethren, though these are come out of the loins of Abraham:

⁶ but he who has no genealogy from them has tithed Abraham, and blessed him who had the promises.

⁷ But beyond all gainsaying, the inferior is blessed by the better.

⁸ And here dying men receive tithes; but there [one] of whom the witness is that he lives;

⁹ and, so to speak, through Abraham, Levi also, who received tithes, has been made to pay tithes.

¹⁰ For he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchisedec met him.