Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

SCHIN

¹⁶¹ Princes have persecuted me without cause, but my heart stood in awe of Your Words.

¹⁶² I rejoice at Your Word, as one who finds a great spoil.

¹⁶³ I hate falsehood and abhor it, but Your Law do I love.

¹⁶⁴ Seven times a day do I praise You because of Your righteous Judgments.

¹⁶⁵ Those who love Your Law shall have great peace. And nothing shall cause them to stumble.

¹⁶⁶ LORD, I have trusted in Your salvation; and have done Your Commandments.

¹⁶⁷ My soul has kept Your Testimonies, for I love them exceedingly.

¹⁶⁸ I have kept Your Precepts and Your Testimonies, for all my ways are before You.

¹⁷ And the Word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying:

¹⁸ “Arise! Go down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, who is in Samaria, lo, in the vineyard of Naboth. He has gone down to take possession of it.

¹⁹ “Therefore, you shall say to him, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Have you killed and also gotten possession?”’ And you shall speak to him, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD: “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick your blood also.”’”

²⁰ And Ahab said to Elijah, “Have you found me, O my enemy?” And he answered, “I have found you. For you have sold yourself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD.

²¹ ‘Behold, I will bring misery upon you, and will take away your posterity, and will cut off every male in Israel from Ahab, him who is shut up as well as him who is left in Israel.

²² ‘And I will make your House like the House of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, and like the House of Baasha, the son of Ahijah, for the provocation with which you have provoked and made Israel sin.’”

²³ And also, the LORD spoke of Jezebel, saying, “The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel.

²⁴ “The dogs shall eat him of Ahab’s stock who dies in the city. And him who dies in the fields shall the birds of the air eat.”

²⁵ (But there was no one like Ahab, who sold himself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD, and whom Jezebel, his wife, provoked.

²⁶ For he had acted very abominably in following idols, according to all that the Amorites did, whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel.)

²⁷ Now, when Ahab heard those words, he tore his clothes and put sackcloth upon himself, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.

²⁸ And the Word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying:

²⁹ “Do you see how Ahab is humbled before Me? Because he submits himself before Me, I will not bring that misery in his days. But I will bring misery upon his House in his sons’ days.”

4 Dearly beloved, do not believe every spirit. But test the spirits to see if they are of God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world.

² By this you shall know the Spirit of God: Every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God.

³ And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, is not of God. But this is the spirit of Antichrist, of whom you have heard; how that he would come and is now already in this world.

⁴ Little children, you are of God; and have overcome them! For greater is He Who is in you than he who is in this world.

⁵ They are of this world. Therefore, they speak of this world. And this world hears them.

⁶ We are of God. The one who knows God hears us. The one who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of error.