Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Song of degrees. Of Solomon.

127 Unless Jehovah build the house, in vain do its builders labour in it; unless Jehovah keep the city, the keeper watcheth in vain:

² It is vain for you to rise up early, to lie down late, to eat the bread of sorrows: so to his beloved one he giveth sleep.

³ Lo, children are an inheritance from Jehovah, [and] the fruit of the womb a reward.

⁴ As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are the children of youth.

⁵ Happy is the man that hath filled his quiver with them. They shall not be ashamed when they speak with enemies in the gate.

12 And remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, of which thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

² before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars, be darkened, and the clouds return after the rain;

³ in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows are darkened,

⁴ and the doors are shut toward the street; when the sound of the grinding is subdued, and they rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low;

⁵ they are also afraid of what is high, and terrors are in the way, and the almond is despised, and the grasshopper is a burden, and the caper-berry is without effect; (for man goeth to his age-long home, and the mourners go about the streets;)

⁶ —before the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be shattered at the fountain, or the wheel be broken at the cistern;

⁷ and the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit return unto God who gave it.

⁸ Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher: all is vanity.

¹³ Let us hear the end of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole of man.

¹⁴ For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.

²² And he said to his disciples, For this cause I say unto you, Be not careful for life, what ye shall eat, nor for the body, what ye shall put on.

²³ The life is more than food, and the body than raiment.

²⁴ Consider the ravens, that they sow not nor reap; which have neither storehouse nor granary; and God feeds them. How much better are *ye* than the birds?

²⁵ But which of you by being careful can add to his stature one cubit?

²⁶ If therefore ye cannot [do] even what is least, why are ye careful about the rest?

²⁷ Consider the lilies how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I say unto you, Not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed as one of these.

²⁸ But if God thus clothe the grass, which to-day is in the field and to-morrow is cast into [the] oven, how much rather you, O ye of little faith?

²⁹ And *ye*, seek not what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, and be not in anxiety;

³⁰ for all these things do the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that ye have need of these things;

³¹ but seek his kingdom, and [all] these things shall be added to you.