Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

For Solomon.

72 O God, give the king thy judgments, and thy righteousness unto the king's son.

² He will judge thy people with righteousness, and thine afflicted with judgment.

³ The mountains shall bring peace to the people, and the hills, by righteousness.

⁴ He will do justice to the afflicted of the people; he will save the children of the needy, and will break in pieces the oppressor.

⁵ They shall fear thee as long as sun and moon endure, from generation to generation.

⁶ He shall come down like rain on the mown grass, as showers that water the earth.

⁷ In his days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace till the moon be no more.

⁸ And he shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.

⁹ The dwellers in the desert shall bow before him, and his enemies shall lick the dust.

¹⁰ The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall render presents; the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer tribute:

¹¹ Yea, all kings shall bow down before him; all nations shall serve him.

¹² For he will deliver the needy who crieth, and the afflicted, who hath no helper;

¹³ He will have compassion on the poor and needy, and will save the souls of the needy:

¹⁴ He will redeem their souls from oppression and violence, and precious shall their blood be in his sight.

¹⁵ And he shall live; and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba; and prayer shall be made for him continually: all the day shall he be blessed.

¹⁶ There shall be abundance of corn in the earth, upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon; and they of the city shall bloom like the herb of the earth.

¹⁷ His name shall endure for ever; his name shall be continued as long as the sun: and [men] shall bless themselves in him; all nations shall call him blessed.

¹⁸ Blessed be Jehovah Elohim, the God of Israel, who alone doeth wondrous things!

¹⁹ And blessed be his glorious name for ever! and let the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen, and Amen.

²⁰ The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.

¹⁴ And the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold,

¹⁵ besides what [came] by the dealers, and by the traffic of the merchants, and by all the kings of Arabia, and by the governors of the country.

¹⁶ And king Solomon made two hundred targets of beaten gold,—he applied six hundred [shekels] of gold to one target;

¹⁷ and three hundred shields of beaten gold,—he applied three minas of gold to one shield; and the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon.

¹⁸ And the king made a great throne of ivory, and overlaid it with refined gold:

¹⁹ the throne had six steps, and the top of the throne was rounded behind; and there were arms on each side at the place of the seat, and two lions stood beside the arms;

²⁰ and twelve lions stood there on the one side and on the other upon the six steps: there was not the like made in any kingdom.

²¹ And all king Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of precious gold: none were of silver, [which] was not of the least account in the days of Solomon.

²² For the king had on the sea a Tarshish-fleet, with the fleet of Hiram: once in three years came the Tarshish-fleet, bringing gold and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks.

²³ And king Solomon was greater than all the kings of the earth in riches and in wisdom.

²⁴ And all the earth sought the presence of Solomon, to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his heart.

²⁵ And they brought every man his present, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and clothing, and armour, and spices, horses and mules, a rate year by year.

⁷ But to each one of us has been given grace according to the measure of the gift of the Christ.

¹¹ and *he* has given some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some shepherds and teachers,

¹² for the perfecting of the saints; with a view to [the] work of [the] ministry, with a view to the edifying of the body of Christ;

¹³ until we all arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at [the] full-grown man, at [the] measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ;

¹⁴ in order that we may be no longer babes, tossed and carried about by every wind of *that* teaching [which is] in the sleight of men, in unprincipled cunning with a view to systematized error;

¹⁵ but, holding the truth in love, we may grow up to him in all things, who is the head, the Christ:

¹⁶ from whom the whole body, fitted together, and connected by every joint of supply, according to [the] working in [its] measure of each one part, works for itself the increase of the body to its self-building up in love.