Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

3 Lord, how they have increased that trouble me! Many are they that rise up against me!

² Many there be that say of my soul, “There is no help for him in God.” Selah

³ But Thou, O Lord, art a shield for me, my glory and the lifter up of mine head.

⁴ I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and He heard me from His holy hill. Selah

⁵ I laid me down and slept; I awaked, for the Lord sustained me.

⁶ I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people that have set themselves against me round about.

⁷ Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! For Thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheekbone; Thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.

⁸ Salvation belongeth unto the Lord. Thy blessing is upon Thy people. Selah

⁵ “Behold ye among the heathen and regard, and wonder marvelously; for I will work a work in your days which ye will not believe, though it be told you.

⁶ For lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land to possess the dwelling places that are not theirs.

⁷ They are terrible and dreadful; their judgment and their dignity shall proceed from themselves.

⁸ Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves. And their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from afar; they shall fly as the vulture that hasteneth to eat.

⁹ They shall come all for violence; their faces shall consume as the east wind, and they shall gather the captives as the sand.

¹⁰ And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them. They shall deride every stronghold, for they shall heap up dirt and take it.

¹¹ Then shall his mind change; and he shall pass over, and offend, imputing this his power unto his god.”

¹² Art Thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One? We shall not die. O Lord, Thou hast ordained them for judgment; and, O mighty God, Thou hast established them for correction.

¹³ Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity. Why lookest Thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest Thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?

¹⁴ And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things that have no ruler over them?

¹⁵ They take up all of them with the hook; they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag; therefore they rejoice and are glad.

¹⁶ Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag, because by them their portion is fat and their meat plenteous.

¹⁷ Shall they therefore empty their net, and not spare continually to slay the nations?

² My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations,

³ knowing this: that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

⁴ But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking nothing.

⁵ If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.

⁶ But let him ask in faith, never wavering; for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind.

⁷ For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.

⁸ A doubleminded man is unstable in all his ways.

⁹ Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted,

¹⁰ but the rich in that he is made low, because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.

¹¹ For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat than it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth. So also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.