Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁸ The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and abounding in mercy and loving-kindness.

⁹ The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works [the entirety of things created].

¹⁰ All Your works shall praise You, O Lord, and Your loving ones shall bless You [affectionately and gratefully shall Your saints confess and praise You]!

¹¹ They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom and talk of Your power,

¹² To make known to the sons of men God’s mighty deeds and the glorious majesty of His kingdom.

¹³ Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Your dominion endures throughout all generations.

¹⁴ The Lord upholds all those [of His own] who are falling and raises up all those who are bowed down.

4 And the angel who talked with me came again and awakened me, like a man who is wakened out of his sleep.

² And said to me, What do you see? I said, I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with its bowl [for oil] on the top of it and its seven lamps on it, and [there are] seven pipes to each of the seven lamps which are upon the top of it.^(A)

³ And there are two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl and the other upon the left side of it [feeding it continuously with oil].^(B)

⁴ So I asked the angel who talked with me, What are these, my lord?

⁵ Then the angel who talked with me answered me, Do you not know what these are? And I said, No, my lord.

⁶ Then he said to me, This [addition of the bowl to the candlestick, causing it to yield a ceaseless supply of oil from the olive trees] is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit [of Whom the oil is a symbol], says the Lord of hosts.

⁷ For who are you, O great mountain [of human obstacles]? Before Zerubbabel [who with Joshua had led the return of the exiles from Babylon and was undertaking the rebuilding of the temple, before him] you shall become a plain [a mere ^[a]molehill]! And he shall bring forth the finishing gable stone [of the new temple] with loud shoutings of the people, crying, Grace, grace to it!^(C)

²¹ In that same hour He rejoiced and gloried in the Holy Spirit and said, I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have concealed these things [relating to salvation] from the wise and understanding and learned, and revealed them to babes (the childish, unskilled, and untaught). Yes, Father, for such was Your gracious ^[a]will and choice and good pleasure.

²² All things have been given over into My power by My Father; and no one knows Who the Son is except the Father, or Who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son may choose to reveal and make Him known.

²³ Then turning to His disciples, He said privately, Blessed (happy, ^[b]to be envied) are those whose eyes see what you see!

²⁴ For I tell you that many prophets and kings longed to see what you see and they did not see it, and to hear what you hear and they did not hear it.