Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁷ Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; have mercy and be gracious to me and answer me!

⁸ You have said, Seek My face [inquire for and require My presence as your vital need]. My heart says to You, Your face (Your presence), Lord, will I seek, inquire for, and require [of necessity and on the authority of Your Word].

⁹ Hide not Your face from me; turn not Your servant away in anger, You Who have been my help! Cast me not off, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation!

¹⁰ Although my father and my mother have forsaken me, yet the Lord will take me up [adopt me as His child].^(A)

¹¹ Teach me Your way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain and even path because of my enemies [those who lie in wait for me].

¹² Give me not up to the will of my adversaries, for false witnesses have risen up against me; they breathe out cruelty and violence.

¹³ [What, what would have become of me] had I not believed that I would see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living!

¹⁴ Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait for and hope for and expect the Lord.

49 And Jacob called for his sons and said, Gather yourselves together [around me], that I may tell you what shall befall you ^[a]in the latter or last days.

² Gather yourselves together and hear, you sons of Jacob; and hearken to Israel your father.

⁸ Judah, you are the one whom your brothers shall praise; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down to you.

⁹ Judah, a lion’s cub! With the prey, my son, you have gone high up [the mountain]. He stooped down, he crouched like a lion, and like a lioness—who dares provoke and rouse him?^(A)

¹⁰ The scepter or leadership shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh [the Messiah, the Peaceful One] comes to Whom it belongs, and to Him shall be the obedience of the people.^(B)

¹¹ Binding His foal to the vine and His donkey’s colt to the choice vine, He washes His garments in wine and His clothes in the blood of grapes.^(C)

¹² His eyes are darker and more sparkling than wine, and His teeth whiter than milk.

¹³ Zebulun shall live toward the seashore, and he shall be a haven and a landing place for ships; and his border shall be toward Sidon.

²¹ Naphtali is a hind let loose which yields lovely fawns.

²² Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a well (spring or fountain), whose branches run over the wall.

²³ Skilled archers have bitterly attacked and sorely worried him; they have shot at him and persecuted him.

²⁴ But his bow remained strong and steady and rested in the Strength that does not fail him, for the arms of his hands were made strong and active by the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob, by the name of the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel,^(A)

²⁵ By the God of your father, Who will help you, and by the Almighty, Who will bless you with blessings of the heavens above, blessings lying in the deep beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

²⁶ The blessings of your father [on you] are greater than the blessings of my forefathers [Abraham and Isaac on me] and are as lasting as the bounties of the eternal hills; they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him who was the consecrated one and the one separated from his brethren and [the one who] is prince among them.

⁶⁷ Now Zachariah his father was filled with and controlled by the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,

⁶⁸ Blessed (praised and extolled and thanked) be the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has come and brought deliverance and redemption to His people!

⁶⁹ And He has raised up a Horn of salvation [a mighty and valiant Helper, the Author of salvation] for us in the house of David His servant—

⁷⁰ This is as He promised by the mouth of His holy prophets from the most ancient times [in the memory of man]—

⁷¹ That we should have deliverance and be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who detest and pursue us with hatred;

⁷² To make true and show the mercy and compassion and kindness [promised] to our forefathers and to remember and carry out His holy covenant [to bless, which is ^[a]all the more sacred because it is made by God Himself],

⁷³ That covenant He sealed by oath to our forefather Abraham:

⁷⁴ To grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our foes, might serve Him fearlessly

⁷⁵ In holiness (divine consecration) and righteousness [in accordance with the everlasting principles of right] within His presence all the days of our lives.

⁷⁶ And you, little one, shall be called a prophet of the Most High; for you shall go on before the face of the Lord to make ready His ways,^(A)

⁷⁷ To bring and give the knowledge of salvation to His people in the forgiveness and remission of their sins.

⁷⁸ Because of and through the heart of tender mercy and loving-kindness of our God, a Light from on high will dawn upon us and visit [us]^(B)

⁷⁹ To shine upon and give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to direct and guide our feet in a straight line into the way of peace.^(C)