Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 72
A Prayer for the King
Solomonic.(A)
1 God, give Your justice to the king
and Your righteousness to the king’s son.(B)
2 He will judge Your people with righteousness
and Your afflicted ones with justice.(C)
3 May the mountains bring prosperity[a] to the people
and the hills, righteousness.(D)
4 May he vindicate the afflicted among the people,
help the poor,
and crush the oppressor.(E)
19 For you people will live on Zion in Jerusalem and will never cry again. He will show favor to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears, He will answer you. 20 The Lord will give you meager bread and water during oppression,(A) but your Teacher[a] will not hide Himself[b] any longer. Your eyes will see your Teacher,[c] 21 and whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.”(B) 22 Then you will defile your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, and call them filth.
23 Then He will send rain for your seed that you have sown in the ground, and the food, the produce of the ground, will be rich and plentiful. On that day your cattle will graze in open pastures.(C) 24 The oxen and donkeys that work the ground will eat salted fodder scattered with winnowing shovel(D) and fork. 25 Streams flowing with water will be on every high mountain and every raised hill on the day of great slaughter when the towers fall. 26 The moonlight will be as bright as the sunlight, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter(E)—like the light of seven days—on the day(F) that the Lord bandages His people’s injuries and heals the wounds He inflicted.(G)
16 Then Paul stood up and motioned with his hand and said: “Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen!(A) 17 The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors, exalted the people during their stay in the land of Egypt, and led them out of it with a mighty[a] arm.(B) 18 And for about 40 years He put up with them[b] in the wilderness;(C) 19 then after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan,(D) He gave their land to them as an inheritance. 20 This all took about 450 years. After this, He gave them judges until Samuel the prophet.(E) 21 Then they asked for a king, so God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for 40 years.(F) 22 After removing him,(G) He raised up David as their king and testified about him: ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man loyal to Me,(H)[c] who will carry out all My will.’
23 “From this man’s descendants, according to the promise, God brought the Savior, Jesus,[d] to Israel.(I) 24 Before He came to public attention,[e] John had previously proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.(J) 25 Then as John was completing his life’s work, he said, ‘Who do you think I am? I am not the One. But look! Someone is coming after me, and I am not worthy to untie the sandals on His feet.’(K)
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