Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

146 Praise the LORD, O my soul!

² I will praise the LORD during my life. As long as I have any being, I will sing to my God.

³ Do not put your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, for there is no help in him.

⁴ His breath departs. He returns to his earth. Then, his thoughts perish.

⁵ Blessed is he who has the God of Jacob for his help; whose hope is in the LORD his God,

⁶ Who made Heaven and Earth, the sea, and all that therein is. Who keeps his fidelity forever.

⁷ Who executes justice for the oppressed, Who gives bread to the hungry. The LORD frees the prisoners.

⁸ The LORD gives sight to the blind. The LORD raises up the crooked. The LORD loves the righteous.

⁹ The LORD keeps the strangers. He relieves the fatherless and widow; but He overthrows the way of the wicked.

¹⁰ The LORD shall reign forever! O Zion, your God endures from generation to generation. Praise the LORD!

³ A poor man, if he oppresses the poor, is like a raging rain that leaves no food.

⁴ Those who forsake the Law, praise the wicked. But those who keep the Law, set themselves against them.

⁵ Wicked men do not understand judgment. But those who seek the LORD, understand all things.

⁶ Better is the poor who walks in his uprightness than he who perverts his ways, though he is rich.

⁷ He who keeps the Law is a child of understanding. But he who feeds the gluttons, shames his father.

⁸ He who increases his riches by usury and extortion, gathers them for him who will be merciful to the poor.

⁹ He who turns away his ear from hearing the Law, even his prayer shall be abominable.

¹⁰ He who causes the righteous to go astray by an evil way, shall fall into his own pit. And the upright shall inherit good things.

2 And you were dead in trespasses and sins

² (wherein you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the authority of the ruler of the air, even the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,

³ among whom all of us also once lived in the lusts of our flesh, in fulfilling the will of the flesh, and of the mind; and were, by nature, the children of wrath, just as the rest).

⁴ But God, Who is rich in mercy, through His great love with which He loved us,

⁵ even when we were dead by sins, has quickened us together in Christ (by grace you are saved)

⁶ and has raised us up together and made us sit together in the Heavenly places in Christ Jesus;

⁷ so that He might show, in the ages to come, the exceeding riches of His grace through His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

⁸ For by grace are you saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift from God

⁹ (not of works, lest anyone should boast).

¹⁰ For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works; which God has ordained, so that we would walk in them.