Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
126 When the Lord returned the captives to Zion, we were like them that dream.
2 Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing. Then said they among the heathen, “The Lord hath done great things for them.”
3 The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.
4 Turn back our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the South.
5 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
6 He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
9 Mine heart within me is broken because of the prophets; all my bones shake. I am like a drunken man and like a man whom wine hath overcome, because of the Lord and because of the words of His holiness.
10 For the land is full of adulterers; for because of cursing the land mourneth; the pleasant places of the wilderness are dried up, and their course is evil, and their force is not right.
11 “For both prophet and priest are profane; yea, in My house have I found their wickedness,” saith the Lord.
12 “Therefore their way shall be unto them as slippery ways in the darkness; they shall be driven on, and fall therein; for I will bring evil upon them, even the year of their visitation,” saith the Lord.
13 “And I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria: They prophesied in Baal and caused My people Israel to err.
14 I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem a horrible thing: They commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen also the hands of evildoers, that none doth return from his wickedness. They are all of them unto Me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.”
15 Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets: “Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall; for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.”
7 For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, met Abraham, who was returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him.
2 To him also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, Melchizedek first being by interpretation “king of righteousness,” and after that also king of Salem, which means “king of peace.”
3 Without father, without mother and without descent, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like unto the Son of God, he abideth a priest continually.
4 Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils.
5 And verily, those who are of the sons of Levi, who receive the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes from the people according to the law — that is, from their brethren — though they come out of the loins of Abraham.
6 But Melchizedek, whose descent is not counted from them, received tithes from Abraham and blessed him that had the promises.
7 And beyond all contradiction, the lesser is blessed by the greater.
8 And here men who die receive tithes; but there he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed that he liveth.
9 And, as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, paid tithes through Abraham,
10 for he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met Abraham.
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