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].

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

¹⁵ The eyes of all wait for You [looking, watching, and expecting] and You give them their food in due season.

¹⁶ You open Your hand and satisfy every living thing with favor.

¹⁷ The Lord is [rigidly] righteous in all His ways and gracious and merciful in all His works.

¹⁸ The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him sincerely and in truth.

¹⁹ He will fulfill the desires of those who reverently and worshipfully fear Him; He also will hear their cry and will save them.

²⁰ The Lord preserves all those who love Him, but all the wicked will He destroy.

²¹ My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord; and let all flesh bless (affectionately and gratefully praise) His holy name forever and ever.

¹⁷ Arouse yourself, awake! Stand up, O Jerusalem, you who have drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of His wrath, you who have drunk the cup of staggering and intoxication to the dregs.

¹⁸ There is none to guide her among all the sons she has borne; neither is there anyone to take her by the hand among all the sons whom she has brought up.

¹⁹ Two kinds of calamities have befallen you—but who feels sorry for and commiserates you?—they are desolation and destruction [on the land and city], and famine and sword [on the inhabitants]—how shall I comfort you or by whom?

²⁰ Your sons have fainted; they lie [like corpses] at the head of all the streets, like an antelope in a net; they are full [from drinking] of the wrath of the Lord, the rebuke of your God.

²¹ Therefore, now hear this, you who are afflicted, and [who are] drunk, but not with wine [but thrown down by the wrath of God].

²² Thus says your Lord, the Lord, and your God, Who pleads the cause of His people: Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering and intoxication; the cup of My wrath you shall drink no more.

²³ And I will put it into the hands of your tormentors and oppressors, those who said to you, Bow down, that we may ride or tread over you; and you have made your back like the ground and like the street for them to pass over.

⁶ However, it is not as though God’s Word had failed [coming to nothing]. For it is not everybody who is a descendant of Jacob (Israel) who belongs to [the true] Israel.

⁷ And they are not all the children of Abraham because they are by blood his descendants. No, [the promise was] Your descendants will be called and counted through the line of Isaac [though Abraham had an older son].^(A)

⁸ That is to say, it is not the children of the body [of Abraham] who are made God’s children, but it is the offspring to whom the promise applies that shall be counted [as Abraham’s true] descendants.

⁹ For this is what the promise said, About this time [next year] will I return and Sarah shall have a son.^(B)

¹⁰ And not only that, but this too: Rebecca conceived [two sons under exactly the same circumstances] by our forefather Isaac,

¹¹ And the children were yet unborn and had so far done nothing either good or evil. Even so, in order further to carry out God’s purpose of selection (election, choice), which depends not on works or what men can do, but on Him Who calls [them],

¹² It was said to her that the elder [son] should serve the younger [son].^(C)

¹³ As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated (held in ^[a]relative disregard in comparison with My feeling for Jacob).^(D)