Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 130

A Song of ^[a]Ascents.

¹ Out of the depths have I cried to You, O Lord.

² Lord, hear my voice; let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.

³ If You, Lord, should keep account of and treat [us according to our] sins, O Lord, who could stand?^(A)

⁴ But there is forgiveness with You [just what man needs], that You may be reverently feared and worshiped.^(B)

⁵ I wait for the Lord, I expectantly wait, and in His word do I hope.

⁶ I am looking and waiting for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, I say, more than watchmen for the morning.

⁷ O Israel, hope in the Lord! For with the Lord there is mercy and loving-kindness, and with Him is plenteous redemption.

⁸ And He will redeem Israel from all their iniquities.

30 Hezekiah sent to all Israel [as well as] Judah and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh to come to the Lord’s house at Jerusalem to keep the Passover to the Lord, the God of Israel.

² For the king and his princes and all the assembly in Jerusalem took counsel to keep the Passover in the ^[a]second month.^(A)

³ For they could not keep it at the set time because not enough priests had sanctified themselves, neither had the people assembled in Jerusalem.

⁴ The new time pleased the king and all the assembly.

⁵ So they decreed to make a proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, that the people should come to keep the Passover to the Lord, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem. For they had not kept it collectively as prescribed for a long time.

⁶ So the posts went with the letters from the king and his princes throughout all Israel and Judah, as the king commanded, saying, O Israelites, return to the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that He may return to those left of you who escaped out of the hands of the kings of Assyria.

⁷ Do not be like your fathers and brethren, who were unfaithful to the Lord, the God of their fathers, so that He gave them up to desolation [to be an astonishment], as you see.

⁸ Now be not stiff-necked, as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord and come to His sanctuary, which He has sanctified forever, and serve the Lord your God, that His fierce anger may turn away from you.

⁹ For if you return to the Lord, your brethren and your children shall find compassion with their captors and return to this land. For the Lord your God is gracious and merciful, and He will not turn away His face from you if you return to Him.

¹⁰ So the posts passed from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, even to Zebulun, but the people laughed them to scorn and mocked them.

¹¹ Yet, a few of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem.

¹² Also the hand of God came upon Judah to give them one heart to do the commandment of the king and of the princes, by the word of the Lord.

¹⁰ And all who depend on the Law [who are seeking to be justified by obedience to the Law of rituals] are under a curse and doomed to disappointment and destruction, for it is written in the Scriptures, Cursed (accursed, devoted to destruction, doomed to eternal punishment) be everyone who does not continue to abide (live and remain) by all the precepts and commands written in the Book of the Law and to practice them.^(A)

¹¹ Now it is evident that no person is justified (declared righteous and brought into right standing with God) through the Law, for the Scripture says, The man in right standing with God [the just, the righteous] shall live by and out of faith and he who through and by faith is declared righteous and in right standing with God shall live.^(B)

¹² But the Law does not rest on faith [does not require faith, has nothing to do with faith], for it itself says, He who does them [the things prescribed by the Law] shall live by them [not by faith].^(C)

¹³ Christ purchased our freedom [redeeming us] from the curse (doom) of the Law [and its condemnation] by [Himself] becoming a curse for us, for it is written [in the Scriptures], Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree (is crucified);^(D)

¹⁴ To the end that through [their receiving] Christ Jesus, the blessing [promised] to Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, so that we through faith might [all] receive [the realization of] the promise of the [Holy] Spirit.