Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 121

A Song of ^[a]Ascents.

¹ I will lift up my eyes to the hills [around Jerusalem, to sacred Mount Zion and Mount Moriah]—From whence shall my help come?^(A)

² My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.

³ He will not allow your foot to slip or to be moved; He Who keeps you will not slumber.^(B)

⁴ Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand [the side not carrying a shield].^(C)

⁶ The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night.^(D)

⁷ The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life.

⁸ The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.^(E)

¹¹ O you afflicted [city], storm-tossed and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in fair colors [in antimony to enhance their brilliance] and lay your foundations with sapphires.

¹² And I will make your windows and pinnacles of [sparkling] agates or rubies, and your gates of [shining] carbuncles, and all your walls [of your enclosures] of precious stones.^(A)

¹³ And all your [spiritual] children shall be disciples [taught by the Lord and obedient to His will], and great shall be the peace and undisturbed composure of your children.^(B)

¹⁴ You shall establish yourself in righteousness (rightness, in conformity with God’s will and order): you shall be far from even the thought of oppression or destruction, for you shall not fear, and from terror, for it shall not come near you.

¹⁵ Behold, they may gather together and stir up strife, but it is not from Me. Whoever stirs up strife against you shall fall and surrender to you.

¹⁶ Behold, I have created the smith who blows on the fire of coals and who produces a weapon for its purpose; and I have created the devastator to destroy.

¹⁷ But no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you shall show to be in the wrong. This [peace, righteousness, security, triumph over opposition] is the heritage of the servants of the Lord [those in whom the ideal Servant of the Lord is reproduced]; this is the righteousness or the vindication which they obtain from Me [this is that which I impart to them as their justification], says the Lord.

²² So Paul, standing in the center of the Areopagus [Mars Hill meeting place], said: Men of Athens, I perceive in every way [on every hand and with every turn I make] that you are most religious or very reverent to demons.

²³ For as I passed along and carefully observed your objects of worship, I came also upon an altar with this inscription, To the unknown god. Now what you are already worshiping as unknown, this I set forth to you.

²⁴ The God Who produced and formed the world and all things in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in handmade shrines.

²⁵ Neither is He served by human hands, as though He lacked anything, for it is He Himself Who gives life and breath and all things to all [people].^(A)

²⁶ And He made from one [common origin, one source, one blood] all nations of men to settle on the face of the earth, having definitely determined [their] allotted periods of time and the fixed boundaries of their habitation (their settlements, lands, and abodes),

²⁷ So that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after Him and find Him, although He is not far from each one of us.

²⁸ For in Him we live and move and have our being; as even some of your [own] poets have said, For we are also His offspring.

²⁹ Since then we are God’s offspring, we ought not to suppose that Deity (the Godhead) is like gold or silver or stone, [of the nature of] a representation by human art and imagination, or anything constructed or invented.

³⁰ Such [former] ages of ignorance God, it is true, ignored and allowed to pass unnoticed; but now He charges all people everywhere to repent (^[a]to change their minds for the better and heartily to amend their ways, with abhorrence of their past sins),

³¹ Because He has fixed a day when He will judge the world righteously (justly) by a Man Whom He has destined and appointed for that task, and He has made this credible and given conviction and assurance and evidence to everyone by raising Him from the dead.^(B)

³² Now when they had heard [that there had been] a resurrection from the dead, some scoffed; but others said, We will hear you again about this matter.

³³ So Paul went out from among them.

³⁴ But some men were on his side and joined him and believed (became Christians); among them were Dionysius, a judge of the Areopagus, and a woman named Damaris, and some others with them.