Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
124 “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side”—now may Israel say—
2 “if it had not been the Lord who was on our side when men rose up against us,
3 then would they have swallowed us up alive when their wrath was kindled against us;
4 then would the waters have overwhelmed us, the stream would have gone over our soul;
5 then the proud waters would have gone over our soul.”
6 Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth.
7 Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped.
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.
9 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth.
2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
4 “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require. At the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.
6 Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made He man.
7 And you, be ye fruitful and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.”
8 And God spoke unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying,
9 “And I, behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your seed after you,
10 and with every living creature that is with you — of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you, from all that go out of the ark to every beast of the earth.
11 And I will establish My covenant with you: Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.”
12 And God said, “This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 I do set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth.
14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud.
15 And I will remember My covenant which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 And the rainbow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.”
17 And God said unto Noah, “This is the token of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is upon the earth.”
32 And what shall I say more? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and of Barak and of Samson and of Jephthah, of David also and Samuel and of the prophets,
33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
34 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword. Out of weakness they were made strong, waxed valiant in battle, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
35 Women received their dead raised to life again, and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.
36 And others endured the trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea moreover, of bonds and imprisonment.
37 They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented
38 (of whom the world was not worthy). They wandered in deserts and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise,
40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.
Copyright © 1994 by Deuel Enterprises, Inc.