Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 122

A Song of ^[a]Ascents. Of David.

¹ I was glad when they said to me, Let us go to the house of the Lord!^(A)

² Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!—

³ Jerusalem, which is built as a city that is compacted together—

⁴ To which the tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord, as was decreed and as a testimony for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the Lord.

⁵ For there the thrones of judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David.

⁶ Pray for the peace of Jerusalem! May they prosper who love you [the Holy City]!

⁷ May peace be within your walls and prosperity within your palaces!

⁸ For my brethren and companions’ sake, I will now say, Peace be within you!

⁹ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek, inquire for, and require your good.

6 When men began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them,

² The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair, and they took wives of all they desired and chose.

³ Then the Lord said, My Spirit shall not forever dwell and strive with man, for he also is flesh; but his days shall yet be 120 years.

⁴ There were giants on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God lived with the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

⁵ The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination and intention of all human thinking was only evil continually.

⁶ And the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved at heart.

⁷ So the Lord said, I will destroy, blot out, and wipe away mankind, whom I have created from the face of the ground—not only man, [but] the beasts and the creeping things and the birds of the air—for it grieves Me and makes Me regretful that I have made them.

⁸ But Noah found grace (favor) in the eyes of the Lord.

⁹ This is the history of the generations of Noah. Noah was a just and righteous man, blameless in his [evil] generation; Noah walked [in habitual fellowship] with God.

¹⁰ And Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11 Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, ^[a]the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].

² For by [faith—^[b]trust and holy fervor born of faith] the men of old had divine testimony borne to them and obtained a good report.

³ By faith we understand that the worlds [during the successive ages] were framed (fashioned, put in order, and equipped for their intended purpose) by the word of God, so that what we see was not made out of things which are visible.

⁴ [Prompted, actuated] by faith Abel brought God a better and more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, because of which it was testified of him that he was righteous [that he was upright and in right standing with God], and God bore witness by accepting and acknowledging his gifts. And though he died, yet [through the incident] he is still speaking.^(A)

⁵ Because of faith Enoch was caught up and transferred to heaven, so that he did not have a glimpse of death; and he was not found, because God had translated him. For even before he was taken to heaven, he received testimony [still on record] that he had pleased and been satisfactory to God.^(B)

⁶ But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out].

⁷ [Prompted] by faith Noah, being forewarned by God concerning events of which as yet there was no visible sign, took heed and diligently and reverently constructed and prepared an ark for the deliverance of his own family. By this [his faith which relied on God] he passed judgment and sentence on the world’s unbelief and became an heir and possessor of righteousness (^[c]that relation of being right into which God puts the person who has faith).^(C)