Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
73 Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.
2 But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.
3 For I was envious of the foolish when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 For there are no bands in their death, but their strength is firm.
5 They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men.
6 Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment.
7 Their eyes stand out with fatness; they have more than heart could wish.
8 They are corrupt, and speak wickedly concerning oppression; they speak loftily.
9 They set their mouth against the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth.
10 Therefore His people return hither, and waters of a full cup are wrung out to them.
11 And they say, “How doth God know? And is there knowledge in the Most High?”
12 Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.
13 Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain and washed my hands in innocence.
14 For all the day long have I been plagued and chastened every morning.
15 If I say, “I will speak thus,” behold, I should offend against the generation of Thy children.
16 When I thought to understand this, it was too painful for me,
17 until I went into the sanctuary of God. Then understood I their end:
18 surely Thou didst set them in slippery places. Thou didst cast them down into destruction!
19 How they are brought into desolation, as in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors!
20 As a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when Thou awakest, Thou shalt despise their image.
21 Thus my heart was grieved, and I was pricked in my reins.
22 So foolish was I and ignorant; I was as a beast before Thee.
23 Nevertheless I am continually with Thee; Thou hast held me by my right hand.
24 Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel and afterward receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but Thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside Thee.
26 My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.
27 For lo, they that are far from Thee shall perish; Thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from Thee.
28 But it is good for me to draw near to God. I have put my trust in the Lord God, that I may declare all Thy works.
3 And the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the second time, saying,
2 “Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.”
3 So Jonah arose and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days’ journey.
4 And Jonah began to enter into the city a day’s journey, and he cried and said, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
5 So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
6 For word came unto the king of Nineveh; and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered himself with sackcloth and sat in ashes.
7 And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, “Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water.
8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God. Yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.
9 Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not?”
10 And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way. And God repented of the evil that He had said that He would do unto them, and He did it not.
8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing: that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
10 But the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy manner of living and godliness,
12 looking for and hastening unto the coming of the Day of God, wherein the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?
13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
Copyright © 1994 by Deuel Enterprises, Inc.