Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

HE

³³ Teach me, O LORD, the way of Your Statutes, and I will keep it to the end.

³⁴ Give me understanding and I will keep Your Law, yea, I will keep it with my whole heart.

³⁵ Direct me in the path of Your Commandments, for therein is my delight.

³⁶ Incline my heart to Your Testimonies, and not to covetousness.

³⁷ Turn away my eyes from vanity and quicken me in Your way.

³⁸ Establish Your Promise in Your servant, because he fears You.

³⁹ Take away my rebuke, which I fear, for Your Judgments are good.

⁴⁰ Behold, I desire Your Commandments, quicken me in Your righteousness.

24 Again, in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth day of the month, came the Word of the LORD to me, saying:

² “Son of man, write the name of the day, of this same day. The king of Babel set himself against Jerusalem this same day.

³ “Therefore, speak a parable to the rebellious House, and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “Prepare a pot. Prepare it, and also pour water into it.

⁴ “Gather pieces into it, every good piece, the thigh and the shoulder. Fill it with the choice bones.

⁵ “Take one of the best sheep, also, and burn the bones under it. Make it boil well and simmer its bones inside.”

⁶ ‘Because the Lord GOD says thus, “Woe to the bloody city, to the pot, whose scum is inside, and whose scum has not gone out of it. Bring it out, piece by piece. Let no lot fall upon it.

⁷ “For her blood is in the midst of her. She set it upon a high rock and did not pour it upon the ground to cover it with dust,

⁸ “so that it might cause wrath to arise and take vengeance. I have set her blood upon a high rock so that it would not be covered.”

⁹ ‘Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD: “Woe to the bloody city! For I will make the burning great.

¹⁰ “Heap on much wood! Kindle the fire! Consume the flesh and cast in spice! And let the bones be burnt!

¹¹ “Then set it upon its coals empty, so that the bronze of it may be hot, and may burn, and that the filthiness of it may be molten in it, that the scum of it may be consumed.

¹² “She has wearied herself with lies, and her great scum did not go out of her. Therefore, her scum shall be consumed with fire!

¹³ “Wickedness is in your filthiness. Because I would have purged you, and you were not purged, you shall not be purged from your filthiness until I have caused My wrath to light upon you.

¹⁴ “I, the LORD, have spoken it. It shall come to pass, and I will do it. I will not go back, nor will I spare, nor will I relent. According to your ways and according to your works shall they judge you,” says the LORD God.’”

¹¹ I have become a fool in boasting. You have compelled me. For I ought to have been commended by you. For in nothing was I inferior to the very chief Apostles, though I am nothing.

¹² Indeed, the signs of an Apostle were worked out among you with all patience; with signs and wonders and great works.

¹³ For in what have you been inferior to other churches, except that I myself have not been burdensome to you? Forgive me this wrong.

¹⁴ Behold, I am ready to come to you this third time. And yet I will not be burdensome to you. For I seek not what is yours, but you. For the children ought not to lay up for the fathers, but the fathers for the children.

¹⁵ And I will most gladly spend, and will be spent, for your souls; though, the more I love you, the less I am loved.

¹⁶ But let it be that I do not burden you. Yet for as much as I was crafty, I took you with guile.

¹⁷ Did I defraud you by any of those whom I sent to you?

¹⁸ I have urged Titus to go. And with him I have sent a brother. Did Titus defraud you of anything? Have we not walked in the selfsame spirit, in the same steps?

¹⁹ Again, do you think that we defend ourselves to you? We speak before God, in Christ. But we do all things, dearly beloved, for your edifying.

²⁰ For I fear that when I come, I shall not find you as I would like - and that I shall not be found by you as you would like - and that there is strife, envying, wrath, rivalry, slander, gossip, pride, and discord;

²¹ that when I come again, my God humbles me among you. And I shall lament many of those who have sinned already and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lewdness which they have committed.