Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 145

[A Psalm] of praise. Of David.

¹ I will extol You, my God, O King; and I will bless Your name forever and ever [with grateful, affectionate praise].

² Every day [with its new reasons] will I bless You [affectionately and gratefully praise You]; yes, I will praise Your name forever and ever.

³ Great is the Lord and highly to be praised; and His greatness is [so vast and deep as to be] unsearchable.^(A)

⁴ One generation shall laud Your works to another and shall declare Your mighty acts.

⁵ On the glorious splendor of Your majesty and on Your wondrous works I will meditate.

⁶ Men shall speak of the might of Your tremendous and terrible acts, and I will declare Your greatness.

⁷ They shall pour forth [like a fountain] the fame of Your great and abundant goodness and shall sing aloud of Your rightness and justice.

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

³ The shields of the mighty men [of Media and Babylon] are [dyed] red; the valiant men are [clothed] in dyed scarlet. The chariots blaze with fire of steel on the day of his preparation [for battle], and the officers’ horses prance like a cypress forest [reeling in the wind].

⁴ The chariots rage in confusion in the streets; they run to and fro [in wild terror] in the broad ways. They flash with steel [making them appear like torches]; they rush [in various directions] like forked lightnings.

⁵ [The Assyrian leader] remembers and summons his bravest men; they stumble in their march. They hasten to the city’s wall, and their movable defense shelter is prepared and set up.

⁶ The gates or dams of the rivers [surrounding and guarding Nineveh] are opened and the [imperial] palace [of sun-dried brick] is dissolved [by the torrents] and is in dismay.

⁷ It is decreed. She [Nineveh] is stripped and removed, and her maids are lamenting and moaning like doves [softly for fear], beating upon their breasts [and hearts].

⁸ And Nineveh, like a standing pool are her waters and [her inhabitants] are fleeing away! Stand! Stand [firm! a few cry], but no one looks back or causes them to return.

⁹ Take the spoil of silver; take the spoil of gold! For there is no end of the treasure, the glory and wealth of all the precious furnishings.

¹⁰ Emptiness! Desolation! Utter waste! Hearts faint and knees smite together, and anguish is in all loins, and the faces of all grow pale!^(A)

¹¹ Where is the den of the lions which was the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion and the lioness walked, and the lion’s whelp, and none made them afraid?

¹² The lion tore in pieces enough for his whelps and strangled [prey] for his lionesses; he filled his caves with prey and his dens with what he had seized and carried off.

¹³ Behold, I am against you [Nineveh], says the Lord of hosts, and I will burn your chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour your young lions. And I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers shall no more be heard.

⁵ Examine and test and evaluate your own selves to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it. Test and prove yourselves [^[a]not Christ]. Do you not yourselves realize and know [thoroughly by an ever-increasing experience] that Jesus Christ is in you—unless you are [counterfeits] disapproved on trial and rejected?

⁶ But I hope you will recognize and know that we are not disapproved on trial and rejected.

⁷ But I pray to God that you may do nothing wrong, not in order that we [^[b]our teaching] may appear to be approved, but that you may continue doing right, [though] we may seem to have failed and be unapproved.

⁸ For we can do nothing against the Truth [^[c]not serve any party or personal interest], but only for the Truth [^[d]which is the Gospel].

⁹ For we are glad when we are weak (^[e]unapproved) and you are really strong. And this we also pray for: your all-round strengthening and perfecting of soul.

¹⁰ So I write these things while I am absent from you, that when I come to you, I may not have to deal sharply in my use of the authority which the Lord has given me [to be employed, however] for building [you] up and not for tearing [you] down.