Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 13

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

¹ How long will You forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?

² How long must I lay up cares within me and have sorrow in my heart day after day? How long shall my enemy exalt himself over me?

³ Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; lighten the eyes [of my faith to behold Your face in the pitchlike darkness], lest I sleep the sleep of death,

⁴ Lest my enemy say, I have prevailed over him, and those that trouble me rejoice when I am shaken.

⁵ But I have trusted, leaned on, and been confident in Your mercy and loving-kindness; my heart shall rejoice and be in high spirits in Your salvation.

⁶ I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.

¹⁵ When I, even I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it; then behold, there stood before me one [Gabriel] with the appearance of a man.

¹⁶ And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of the [river] Ulai which called and said, Gabriel, make this man [Daniel] understand the vision.^(A)

¹⁷ So he came near where I stood, and when he came, I was frightened and fell on my face. But he said to me, Understand, O son of man, for the [fulfillment of the] vision belongs to [events that shall occur in] the time of the end.

¹⁸ Now as he [Gabriel] was speaking with me, I fell stunned and in deep unconsciousness with my face to the ground; but he touched me and set me upright [where I had stood].

¹⁹ And he said, Behold, I will make you know what will be in the latter time of the indignation [of God upon the ungodly], for it has to do with the time of the end.

²⁰ The ram you saw having two horns, they are the kings of Media and Persia.

²¹ And the shaggy and rough he-goat is the king of Greece, and the great horn between his eyes is the first king [who consolidated the whole realm, Alexander the Great].

²² And as for the horn which was shattered, in whose place four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise out of his nation but not having his [Alexander’s] power.

²³ And at the latter end of their kingdom, when the transgressors [the apostate Jews] have reached the fullness [of their wickedness, taxing the limits of God’s mercy], a king of fierce countenance and understanding dark trickery and craftiness shall stand up.

²⁴ And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power; and he shall corrupt and destroy astonishingly and shall prosper and do his own pleasure, and he shall corrupt and destroy the mighty men and the holy people (the people of the saints).^(B)

²⁵ And through his policy he shall cause trickery to prosper in his hand; he shall magnify himself in his heart and mind, and in their security he will corrupt and destroy many. He shall also stand up against the Prince of princes, but he shall be broken and that by no [human] hand.^(C)

²⁶ The vision of the evenings and the mornings which has been told you is true. But seal up the vision, for it has to do with and belongs to the [now] distant future.

²⁷ And I, Daniel, fainted and was sick [for several] days. Afterward I rose up and did the king’s business; and I wondered at the vision, but there was no one who understood it or could make it understood.

³² But be ever mindful of the days gone by in which, after you were first spiritually enlightened, you endured a great and painful struggle,

³³ Sometimes being yourselves a gazingstock, publicly exposed to insults and abuse and distress, and sometimes claiming fellowship and making common cause with others who were so treated.

³⁴ For you did sympathize and suffer along with those who were imprisoned, and you bore cheerfully the plundering of your belongings and the confiscation of your property, in the knowledge and consciousness that you yourselves had a better and lasting possession.

³⁵ Do not, therefore, fling away your fearless confidence, for it carries a great and glorious compensation of reward.

³⁶ For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and thus receive and ^[a]carry away [and enjoy to the full] what is promised.

³⁷ For still a little while (a very little while), and the Coming One will come and He will not delay.

³⁸ But the just shall live by faith [My righteous servant shall live ^[b]by his conviction respecting man’s relationship to God and divine things, and holy fervor born of faith and conjoined with it]; and if he draws back and shrinks in fear, My soul has no delight or pleasure in him.^(A)

³⁹ But our way is not that of those who draw back to eternal misery (perdition) and are utterly destroyed, but we are of those who believe [who cleave to and trust in and rely on God through Jesus Christ, the Messiah] and by faith preserve the soul.