Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 119
1 Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are the undefiled (the upright, truly sincere, and blameless) in the way [of the revealed will of God], who walk (order their conduct and conversation) in the law of the Lord (the whole of God’s revealed will).
2 Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are they who keep His testimonies, and who seek, inquire for and of Him and crave Him with the whole heart.
3 Yes, they do no unrighteousness [no willful wandering from His precepts]; they walk in His ways.(A)
4 You have commanded us to keep Your precepts, that we should observe them diligently.
5 Oh, that my ways were directed and established to observe Your statutes [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying them]!
6 Then shall I not be put to shame [by failing to inherit Your promises] when I have respect to all Your commandments.
7 I will praise and give thanks to You with uprightness of heart when I learn [by sanctified experiences] Your righteous judgments [Your decisions against and punishments for particular lines of thought and conduct].
8 I will keep Your statutes; O forsake me not utterly.
34 Then shall the land [of Israel have the opportunity to] enjoy its sabbaths as long as it lies desolate and you are in your enemies’ land; then shall the land rest, to enjoy and receive payments for its sabbaths [divinely ordained for it].
35 As long as it lies desolate and waste, it shall have rest, the rest it did not have in your sabbaths when you dwelt upon it.(A)
36 As for those who are left of you, I will send dejection (lack of courage, a faintness) into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; the sound of a driven leaf shall put them to hasty and tumultuous flight, and they shall flee as if from the sword, and fall when no one pursues them.
37 They shall stumble over one another as if to escape a sword when no one pursues them; and you shall have no power to stand before your enemies.
38 You shall perish among the nations; the land of your enemies shall eat you up.
39 And those of you who are left shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away like them.
40 But if they confess their own and their fathers’ iniquity in their treachery which they committed against Me—and also that because they walked contrary to Me
41 I also walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—if then their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they then accept the punishment for their iniquity,(B)
42 Then will I [earnestly] remember My covenant with Jacob, My covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham, and [earnestly] remember the land.(C)
43 But the land shall be left behind them and shall enjoy its sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they shall accept the punishment for their sins and make amends because they despised and rejected My ordinances and their soul scorned and rejected My statutes.
44 And [a]yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not spurn and cast them away, neither will I despise and abhor them to destroy them utterly and to break My covenant with them, for I am the Lord their God.(D)
45 But I will for their sake [earnestly] remember the covenant with their forefathers whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord.
46 These are the statutes, ordinances, and laws which the Lord made between Him and the Israelites on Mount Sinai through Moses.
7 Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the message which you have heard [the [a]doctrine of salvation through Christ].
8 Yet I am writing you a new commandment, which is true (is realized) in Him and in you, because the darkness ([b]moral blindness) is clearing away and the true Light ([c]the revelation of God in Christ) is already shining.
9 Whoever says he is in the Light and [yet] hates his brother [Christian, [d]born-again child of God his Father] is in darkness even until now.
10 Whoever loves his brother [believer] abides (lives) in the Light, and in It or in him there is no occasion for stumbling or cause for error or sin.
11 But he who hates (detests, despises) his brother [[e]in Christ] is in darkness and walking (living) in the dark; he is straying and does not perceive or know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.
12 I am writing to you, little children, because for His name’s sake your sins are forgiven [pardoned through His name and on account of confessing His name].
13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you have come to know (recognize, be aware of, and understand) Him Who [has existed] from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have been victorious over the wicked [one]. I write to you, [f]boys (lads), because you have come to know (recognize and be aware) of the Father.
14 I write to you, fathers, because you have come to know (recognize, be conscious of, and understand) Him Who [has existed] from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong and vigorous, and the Word of God is [always] abiding in you (in your hearts), and you have been victorious over the wicked one.
15 Do not love or cherish the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh [craving for sensual gratification] and the lust of the eyes [greedy longings of the mind] and the pride of life [assurance in one’s own resources or in the stability of earthly things]—these do not come from the Father but are from the world [itself].
17 And the world passes away and disappears, and with it the forbidden cravings (the passionate desires, the lust) of it; but he who does the will of God and carries out His purposes in his life abides (remains) forever.
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