Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹² Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, and the people whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance.

¹³ The Lord looketh down from heaven; He beholdeth all of the sons of men.

¹⁴ From the place of His habitation He looketh upon all the inhabitants of the earth;

¹⁵ He fashioneth the hearts of all; He considereth all their works.

¹⁶ No king is saved by the multitude of an army; a mighty man is not delivered by much strength.

¹⁷ A horse is a vain thing for safety; neither shall he deliver any by his great strength.

¹⁸ Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in His mercy,

¹⁹ to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.

²⁰ Our soul waiteth for the Lord; He is our help and our shield.

²¹ For our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy name.

²² Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, according as we hope in Thee.

6 There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men:

² a man to whom God hath given riches, wealth and honor, so that he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth, yet God giveth him not the power to eat thereof, but a stranger eateth it. This is vanity, and it is an evil disease.

³ If a man beget a hundred children and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial, I say that an untimely birth is better than he,

⁴ for he cometh in with vanity and departeth in darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness;

⁵ moreover he hath not seen the sun, nor known any thing. This one hath more rest than the other:

⁶ yea, though he live a thousand years twicetold, yet he hath seen no good. Do not all go to one place?

7 Then said the high priest, “Are these things so?”

² And Stephen said, “Men, brethren and fathers, hearken! The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran,

³ and said unto him, ‘Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred, and come into the land which I shall show thee.’

⁴ Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans, and dwelt in Haran; and from thence, when his father was dead, He removed himself into this land wherein ye now dwell.

⁵ And He gave him no inheritance in it — no, not so much as to set his foot on; yet He promised that He would give it to him as a possession and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child.

⁶ And God spoke in this way: that his seed should sojourn in a strange land, and that they should be brought into bondage and be mistreated for four hundred years.

⁷ ‘And the nation to whom they shall be in bondage will I judge,’ said God, ‘and after that shall they come forth, and serve Me in this place.’

⁸ And He gave him the covenant of circumcision. And so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs.