Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

32 Blessed is he whose wickedness is forgiven; whose sin is covered.

² Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.

³ When I held my tongue (my bones being consumed when I roared all day,

⁴ for Your hand is heavy upon me day and night) and my moisture turned into the drought of Summer (Selah),

⁵ I acknowledged my sin to You and did not hide my iniquity. I thought, “I will confess to the LORD my wickedness against myself.” And You forgave the punishment of my sin. Selah.

⁶ Therefore, everyone who is godly shall make his prayer to You in a time when You may be found. Surely, in the flood of great waters they shall not come near him.

⁷ You are my Secret Place. You preserve me from trouble. You surround me with joyful deliverance. Selah.

⁸ “I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you shall go. I will guide you with My eye.

⁹ “Be not like a horse, or like a mule, which do not understand; whose mouths you bind with bit and bridle, lest they come near you.”

¹⁰ Many sorrows shall come to the wicked. But he who trusts in the LORD, mercy shall surround him.

¹¹ Be glad, you righteous, and rejoice in the LORD; and be joyful, all you who are upright in heart!

³⁰ “Therefore, behold, I will come against the prophets,” says the LORD, “who steal My Word, each one from his neighbor.

³¹ “Behold, I will come against the prophets,” says the LORD, “who have sweet tongues, and say, ‘He says.’

³² “Behold, I will come against those who prophesy false dreams,” says the LORD, “and tell them, and cause My people to err by their lies, and by their flatteries. And I did not send them or command them. Therefore, they bring no profit to this people,” says the LORD.

³³ “And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest shall ask you, saying, ‘What is the oracle of the LORD?’ You shall then say to them, ‘What oracle? “I will forsake you,”’” says the LORD.

³⁴ “And as for the prophet, or the priest, or the people who shall say, ‘The oracle of the LORD,’ I will reckon with each one and his house.

³⁵ “Thus each one shall say to his neighbor, and each one to his brother: ‘What has the LORD answered?’ and ‘What has the LORD spoken?’

³⁶ “And you shall no longer mention the oracle of the LORD. For each man’s word shall be his oracle. For you have perverted the Words of the living God, the LORD of Hosts, our God.

³⁷ “Thus shall you say to the Prophet: ‘What has the LORD answered you? And what has the LORD spoken?’

³⁸ “And if you say, ‘The oracle of the LORD,’ then thus says the LORD: Because you say this word, ‘The oracle of the LORD,’ and I have sent to you, saying, ‘You shall not say, ‘The oracle of the LORD,’

³⁹ “Therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you. And I will forsake you and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of My presence.

⁴⁰ “And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame, which shall never be forgotten.”

4 Dearly beloved, do not believe every spirit. But test the spirits to see if they are of God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.

² By this you shall know the Spirit of God: Every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.

³ And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is not of God. But this is the spirit of Antichrist, of whom you have heard; how that he would come and is now already in this world.

⁴ Little children, you are of God; and have overcome them! For greater is He Who is in you than he who is in this world.

⁵ They are of this world. Therefore, they speak of this world. And this world hears them.

⁶ We are of God. The one who knows God hears us. The one who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error.