Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁷ Because for Your sake I have borne taunt and reproach; confusion and shame have covered my face.

⁸ I have become a stranger to my brethren, and an alien to my mother’s children.^(A)

⁹ For zeal for Your house has eaten me up, and the reproaches and insults of those who reproach and insult You have fallen upon me.^(B)

¹⁰ When I wept and humbled myself with fasting, I was jeered at and humiliated;

¹¹ When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword (an object of scorn) to them.

¹² They who sit in [the city’s] gate talk about me, and I am the song of the drunkards.

¹³ But as for me, my prayer is to You, O Lord. At an acceptable and opportune time, O God, in the multitude of Your mercy and the abundance of Your loving-kindness hear me, and in the truth and faithfulness of Your salvation answer me.

¹⁴ Rescue me out of the mire, and let me not sink; let me be delivered from those who hate me and from out of the deep waters.

¹⁵ Let not the floodwaters overflow and overwhelm me, neither let the deep swallow me up nor the [dug] pit [with water perhaps in the bottom] close its mouth over me.

¹⁶ Hear and answer me, O Lord, for Your loving-kindness is sweet and comforting; according to Your plenteous tender mercy and steadfast love turn to me.

¹⁷ Hide not Your face from Your servant, for I am in distress; O answer me speedily!

¹⁸ Draw close to me and redeem me; ransom and set me free because of my enemies [lest they glory in my prolonged distress]!

¹⁸ Then [my enemies] said, Come and let us devise schemes against Jeremiah; for the law [of Moses] shall not perish from the priest [as this false prophet Jeremiah predicts], nor will counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us smite him with the tongue [making a charge against him to the king], and let us not pay any attention to his words.

¹⁹ Give heed to me, Lord; listen to [what] my adversaries [are plotting to do to me—and intercede].

²⁰ Shall evil be recompensed for good? Yet they have dug a pit for my life. [Earnestly] remember that I stood before You to speak good for them, to turn away Your anger from them.

²¹ Therefore deliver up their children to the famine; give them over to the power of the sword. And let their wives become childless and widows; let their men meet death by pestilence, their young men be slain by the sword in battle.

²² Let a cry be heard from their houses when You suddenly bring a troop upon them, for they have dug a pit to take me and have hidden snares for my feet.

²³ Yet, Lord, You know all their plotting against me to slay me. Forgive not their iniquity, nor blot out their sin from Your sight. But let them be overthrown before You; deal with them in the time of Your anger.

¹⁷ But the high priest rose up and all who were his supporters, that is, the party of the Sadducees, and being filled with ^[a]jealousy and indignation and rage,

¹⁸ They seized and arrested the apostles (special messengers) and put them in the public jail.

¹⁹ But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and, leading them out, said,

²⁰ Go, take your stand in the temple courts and declare to the people the whole doctrine concerning this Life (the eternal life which Christ revealed).

²¹ And when they heard this, they accordingly went into the temple about daybreak and began to teach. Now the high priest and his supporters who were with him arrived and called together the council (Sanhedrin), even all the senate of the sons of Israel, and they sent to the prison to have [the apostles] brought.

²² But when the attendants arrived there, they failed to find them in the jail; so they came back and reported,

²³ We found the prison quite safely locked up and the guards were on duty outside the doors, but when we opened [it], we found no one on the inside.

²⁴ Now when the military leader of the temple area and the chief priests heard these facts, they were much perplexed and thoroughly at a loss about them, wondering into what this might grow.

²⁵ But some man came and reported to them, saying, Listen! The men whom you put in jail are standing [right here] in the temple and teaching the people!

²⁶ Then the military leader went with the attendants and brought [the prisoners], but without violence, for they dreaded the people lest they be stoned by them.