Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 63

A Psalm of David; when he was in the Wilderness of Judah.

¹ O God, You are my God, earnestly will I seek You; my inner self thirsts for You, my flesh longs and is faint for You, in a dry and weary land where no water is.

² So I have looked upon You in the sanctuary to see Your power and Your glory.

³ Because Your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You.

⁴ So will I bless You while I live; I will lift up my hands in Your name.

⁵ My whole being shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips

⁶ When I remember You upon my bed and meditate on You in the night watches.

⁷ For You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice.

⁸ My whole being follows hard after You and clings closely to You; Your right hand upholds me.

⁹ But those who seek and demand my life to ruin and destroy it shall [themselves be destroyed and] go into the lower parts of the earth [into the underworld of the dead].

¹⁰ They shall be given over to the power of the sword; they shall be a prey for foxes and jackals.

¹¹ But the king shall rejoice in God; everyone who swears by Him [that is, who binds himself by God’s authority, acknowledging His supremacy, and devoting himself to His glory and service alone; every such one] shall glory, for the mouths of those who speak lies shall be stopped.

1 The word of the Lord that came to ^[a]Joel the son of Pethuel.

² Hear this, you aged men, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing as this occurred in your days or even in the days of your fathers?

³ Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.

⁴ What the crawling locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; and what the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten; and what the hopping locust left, the stripping locust has eaten.

⁵ Awake, you drunkards, and weep; wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the [fresh] sweet juice [of the grape], for it is cut off and removed from your mouth.

⁶ For a [heathen and hostile] nation [of locusts, illustrative of a human foe] has invaded My land, mighty and without number; its teeth are the teeth of a lion, and it has the jaw teeth of a lioness.^(A)

⁷ It has laid waste My vine [symbol of God’s people] and barked and broken My fig tree; it has made them completely bare and thrown them down; their branches are made white.^(B)

⁸ Lament like a virgin [bride] girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth [who has died].

⁹ The meal or cereal offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests, the Lord’s ministers, mourn.

¹⁰ The field is laid waste, the ground mourns; for the grain is destroyed, the new juice [of the grape] is dried up, the oil fails.

¹¹ Be ashamed, O you tillers of the soil; wail, O you vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished.

¹² The vine is dried up and the fig tree fails; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple or quince tree, even all the trees of the field are withered, so that joy has withered and fled away from the sons of men.

¹³ Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar; come, lie all night in sackcloth, you ministers of my [Joel’s] God, for the cereal or meal offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.

¹⁴ Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land in the house of the Lord, your God, and cry to the Lord [in penitent pleadings].

⁶ But now that Timothy has just come back to us from [his visit to] you and has brought us the good news of [the steadfastness of] your faith and [the warmth of your] love, and [reported] how kindly you cherish a constant and affectionate remembrance of us [and that you are] longing to see us as we [are to see] you,

⁷ Brethren, for this reason, in [spite of all] our stress and crushing difficulties we have been filled with comfort and cheer about you [because of] your faith (^[a]the leaning of your whole personality on God in complete trust and confidence).

⁸ Because now we [really] live, if you stand [firm] in the Lord.

⁹ For what [adequate] thanksgiving can we render to God for you for all the gladness and delight which we enjoy for your sakes before our God?

¹⁰ [And we] continue to pray especially and with most intense earnestness night and day that we may see you face to face and mend and make good whatever may be imperfect and lacking in your faith.

¹¹ Now may our God and Father Himself and our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) guide our steps to you.

¹² And may the Lord make you to increase and excel and overflow in love for one another and for all people, just as we also do for you,

¹³ So that He may strengthen and confirm and establish your hearts faultlessly pure and unblamable in holiness in the sight of our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) with all His saints (the ^[b]holy and glorified people of God)! Amen, (so be it)!