Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 65

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. A song.

¹ To You belongs silence (the submissive wonder of reverence which bursts forth into praise) and praise is due and fitting to You, O God, in Zion; and to You shall the vow be performed.

² O You Who hear prayer, to You shall all flesh come.

³ Iniquities and much varied guilt prevail against me; [yet] as for our transgressions, You forgive and purge them away [make atonement for them and cover them out of Your sight]!

⁴ Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man whom You choose and cause to come near, that he may dwell in Your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house, Your holy temple.

⁵ By fearful and glorious things [that terrify the wicked but make the godly sing praises] do You answer us in righteousness (rightness and justice), O God of our salvation, You Who are the confidence and hope of all the ends of the earth and of those far off on the seas;

⁶ Who by [Your] might have founded the mountains, being girded with power,

⁷ Who still the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, and the tumult of the peoples,

⁸ So that those who dwell in earth’s farthest parts are afraid of [nature’s] signs of Your presence. You make the places where morning and evening have birth to shout for joy.

⁹ You visit the earth and saturate it with water; You greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; You provide them with grain when You have so prepared the earth.

¹⁰ You water the field’s furrows abundantly, You settle the ridges of it; You make the soil soft with showers, blessing the sprouting of its vegetation.

¹¹ You crown the year with Your bounty and goodness, and the tracks of Your [chariot wheels] drip with fatness.

¹² The [luxuriant] pastures in the uncultivated country drip [with moisture], and the hills gird themselves with joy.

¹³ The meadows are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are covered with grain; they shout for joy and sing together.

52 Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for henceforth there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean.^(A)

² Shake yourself from the dust; arise, sit [erect in a dignified place], O Jerusalem; loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive Daughter of Zion.

³ For thus says the Lord: You were sold for nothing, and you shall be redeemed without money.

⁴ For thus says the Lord God: My people went down at the first into Egypt to sojourn there; and [many years later Sennacherib] the Assyrian oppressed them for nothing. [Now I delivered you from both Egypt and Assyria; what then can prevent Me from delivering you from Babylon?]

⁵ But now what have I here, says the Lord, seeing that My people have been taken away for nothing? Those who rule over them howl [with joy], says the Lord, and My name continually is blasphemed all day long.^(B)

⁶ Therefore My people shall know what My name is and what it means; therefore they shall know in that day that I am He who speaks; behold, I Am!^(C)

⁴⁴ But Jesus loudly declared, The one who believes in Me does not [only] believe in and trust in and rely on Me, but [in believing in Me he believes] in Him Who sent Me.

⁴⁵ And whoever sees Me sees Him Who sent Me.

⁴⁶ I have come as a Light into the world, so that whoever believes in Me [whoever cleaves to and trusts in and relies on Me] may not continue to live in darkness.

⁴⁷ If anyone hears My teachings and fails to observe them [does not keep them, but disregards them], it is not I who judges him. For I have not come to judge and to condemn and to pass sentence and to inflict penalty on the world, but to save the world.

⁴⁸ Anyone who rejects Me and persistently sets Me at naught, refusing to accept My teachings, has his judge [however]; for the [very] message that I have spoken will itself judge and convict him at the last day.

⁴⁹ This is because I have never spoken on My own authority or of My own accord or as self-appointed, but the Father Who sent Me has Himself given Me orders [concerning] what to say and what to tell.^(A)

⁵⁰ And I know that His commandment is (means) eternal life. So whatever I speak, I am saying [exactly] what My Father has told Me to say and in accordance with His instructions.