Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 121

A Song of ^[a]Ascents.

¹ I will lift up my eyes to the hills [around Jerusalem, to sacred Mount Zion and Mount Moriah]—From whence shall my help come?^(A)

² My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.

³ He will not allow your foot to slip or to be moved; He Who keeps you will not slumber.^(B)

⁴ Behold, He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand [the side not carrying a shield].^(C)

⁶ The sun shall not smite you by day, nor the moon by night.^(D)

⁷ The Lord will keep you from all evil; He will keep your life.

⁸ The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.^(E)

¹⁸ Who is a God like You, Who forgives iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retains not His anger forever, because He delights in mercy and loving-kindness.

¹⁹ He will again have compassion on us; He will subdue and tread underfoot our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.^(A)

²⁰ You will show Your faithfulness and perform the sure promise to Jacob and loving-kindness and mercy to Abraham, as You have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.^(B)

²¹ But now the righteousness of God has been revealed independently and altogether apart from the Law, although actually it is attested by the Law and the Prophets,

²² Namely, the righteousness of God which comes by believing with personal trust and confident reliance on Jesus Christ (the Messiah). [And it is meant] for all who believe. For there is no distinction,

²³ Since all have sinned and are falling short of the honor and glory ^[a]which God bestows and receives.

²⁴ [All] are justified and made upright and in right standing with God, freely and gratuitously by His grace (His unmerited favor and mercy), through the redemption which is [provided] in Christ Jesus,

²⁵ Whom God put forward [^[b]before the eyes of all] as a mercy seat and propitiation by His blood [the cleansing and life-giving sacrifice of atonement and reconciliation, to be received] through faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over and ignored former sins without punishment.

²⁶ It was to demonstrate and prove at the present time (^[c]in the now season) that He Himself is righteous and that He justifies and accepts as righteous him who has [true] faith in Jesus.

²⁷ Then what becomes of [our] pride and [our] boasting? It is excluded (banished, ruled out entirely). On what principle? [On the principle] of doing good deeds? No, but on the principle of faith.

²⁸ For we hold that a man is justified and made upright by faith independent of and distinctly apart from good deeds (works of the Law). [The observance of the Law has nothing to do with justification.]

²⁹ Or is God merely [the God] of Jews? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also,

³⁰ Since it is one and the same God Who will justify the circumcised by faith [^[d]which germinated from Abraham] and the uncircumcised through their [newly acquired] faith. [For it is the same trusting faith in both cases, a firmly relying faith in Jesus Christ].

³¹ Do we then by [this] faith make the Law of no effect, overthrow it or make it a dead letter? Certainly not! On the contrary, we confirm and establish and uphold the Law.