Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

17 Hear what is right, O LORD. Consider my cry. Hear my prayer of unfeigned lips.

² Let my sentence come forth from Your presence. And let Your eyes behold equity.

³ You have tested and visited my heart in the night. You have tried me and found nothing. For I have purposed that my mouth should not offend.

⁴ Concerning the works of men, by the words of Your lips I kept myself from the paths of the cruel man.

⁵ Keep my steps in Your paths, so that my feet do not slide.

⁶ I have called upon You. Surely You will hear me, O God. Incline Your ear to me and hear my words.

⁷ Show Your marvelous mercies, You Who are the Savior of those who trust in You from such as resist Your right hand.

⁸ Keep me as the apple of Your eye. Hide me under the shadow of Your wings

⁹ from the wicked who oppress me, from my enemies who surround me for my soul.

¹⁰ They are enclosed in their own fat. They have spoken proudly with their mouth.

¹¹ They have surrounded us now in our steps. They have set their eyes to bring us down to the ground.

¹² Like a lion that is greedy for prey (and as it were a lion’s whelp) lurking in secret places.

¹³ Arise, LORD! Disappoint him! Cast him down! Deliver my soul from the wicked with Your sword;

¹⁴ from men, by Your hand, O LORD; from men of the world who have their portion in this life; whose bellies You fill with Your hidden treasure. Their children have enough and leave the rest of their substance for their children.

¹⁵ But I will behold Your face in righteousness. And when I awake, I shall be satisfied with Your image. To him who excels: A Psalm of David, the servant of the LORD. Who spoke to the LORD the words of this song on the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies (and from the hand of Saul) and said,

²⁷ So, when the mourning had passed, David sent and took her into his house. And she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done displeased the LORD.

12 Then the LORD sent Nathan to David, who came to him and said to him, “There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor.

² “The rich man had exceedingly many sheep and oxen.

³ “But the poor had none at all, except one little sheep which he had bought and nourished. And it grew up with him and with his children also, and ate of his own morsels and drank of his own cup and slept in his bosom and was to him as his daughter.

⁴ “Now a stranger came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own sheep and from his own oxen to prepare for the stranger who had come to him. But he took the poor man’s sheep and prepared it for the man who had come to him.”

⁵ Then David was exceedingly angry with the man, and said to Nathan, “As the LORD lives, the man who has done this thing shall surely die!

⁶ “And he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing and had no pity!”

⁷ Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man. Thus says the LORD God of Israel: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and delivered you out of the hand of Saul,

⁸ ‘and gave you your lord’s house, and your lord’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah, and would moreover (if that had been too little) have given you such and such things.

⁹ ‘Why have you despised the Commandment of the LORD, to do evil in His sight? You have killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the children of Ammon.

¹⁰ ‘Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised Me, and taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’

¹¹ “Thus said the LORD: ‘Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house, and will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor. And he shall lie with your wives in the sight of his sin.

¹² ‘For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the Sun.’”

¹³ Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD has also put away your sin. You shall not die.

¹⁴ “However, because, by this deed, you have caused the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child who is born to you shall surely die.”

¹⁵ So Nathan departed to his house. And the LORD struck the child whom Uriah’s wife bore to David. And it was sick.

⁷ “And write to the angel of the Church which is of Philadelphia: ‘These things say He Who is Holy and True; Who has the key of David which opens and no man shuts, and shuts and no man opens.

⁸ ‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door. And no one can shut it. For you have a little strength and have kept My Word and have not denied My Name.

⁹ ‘Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan; who call themselves Jews and are not; but lie. Behold, I say, I will make them come and worship before your feet. And they shall know that I have loved you.

¹⁰ ‘Because you have kept the Word of My patience, therefore I will deliver you from the hour of trial, which will come upon all the world to try those who dwell upon the Earth.

¹¹ ‘Behold, I come shortly. Hold that which you have, so that no one take your crown.

¹² ‘He who overcomes I will make a pillar in the Temple of My God, and he shall go out no more. And I will write upon him the Name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, which is the New Jerusalem; which comes down out of Heaven from My God. And I will write upon him My new Name.

¹³ ‘Let he who has an ear, hear what the Spirit says to the Churches.’”