Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁸ Jehovah, God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.

⁹ Behold, O God our shield, and look upon the face of thine anointed.

¹⁰ For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand. I had rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God, than dwell in the tents of wickedness.

¹¹ For Jehovah Elohim is a sun and shield: Jehovah will give grace and glory; no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

¹² Jehovah of hosts, blessed is the man that confideth in thee!

¹³ Then was Daniel brought in before the king. The king spoke and said unto Daniel, Art thou that Daniel, of the children of the captivity of Judah, whom the king my father brought out of Judah?

¹⁴ And I have heard of thee, that the spirit of the gods is in thee, and [that] light and understanding and excellent wisdom is found in thee.

¹⁵ And now the wise men, the magicians, have been brought in before me, that they should read this writing, and make known unto me the interpretation thereof; but they could not shew the interpretation of the thing.

¹⁶ But I have heard of thee, that thou canst give interpretations, and solve problems. Now if thou canst read the writing, and make known to me the interpretation thereof, thou shalt be clothed with purple, and have a chain of gold about thy neck, and shalt be the third ruler in the kingdom.

¹⁷ Then Daniel answered and said before the king, Let thy gifts be to thyself, and give thy rewards to another; yet will I read the writing to the king, and make known to him the interpretation.

¹⁸ O thou king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father the kingdom, and greatness, and glory, and majesty;

¹⁹ and for the greatness that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he exalted, and whom he would he humbled.

²⁰ But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit hardened unto presumption, he was deposed from the throne of his kingdom, and they took his glory from him;

²¹ and he was driven from the sons of men, and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses; they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was bathed with the dew of heaven; till he knew that the Most High God ruleth over the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will.

²² And thou, Belshazzar, his son, hast not humbled thy heart, although thou knewest all this;

²³ but hast lifted up thyself against the Lord of the heavens; and they have brought the vessels of his house before thee, and thou and thy nobles, thy wives and thy concubines, have drunk wine in them; and thou hast praised the gods of silver and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know; and the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified:

²⁴ then from before him was sent the part of the hand, and this writing hath been written.

²⁵ And this is the writing that is written: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.

²⁶ This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE, God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it;

²⁷ TEKEL, Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting;

²⁸ PERES, Thy kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians.

²⁹ Then Belshazzar commanded, and they clothed Daniel with purple, and [put] a chain of gold about his neck, and made proclamation concerning him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.

³⁰ In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain.

³¹ And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, [being] about sixty-two years old.

²⁸ But what think ye? A man had two children, and coming to the first he said, Child, go to-day, work in [my] vineyard.

²⁹ And he answering said, I will not; but afterwards repenting himself he went.

³⁰ And coming to the second he said likewise; and he answering said, *I* [go], sir, and went not.

³¹ Which of the two did the will of the father? They say [to him], The first. Jesus says to them, Verily I say unto you that the tax-gatherers and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.

³² For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not; but the tax-gatherers and the harlots believed him; but *ye* when ye saw [it] repented not yourselves afterwards to believe him.