Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

An instruction. Of Ethan the Ezrahite.

89 I will sing of the loving-kindness of Jehovah for ever; with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness from generation to generation.

² For I said, Loving-kindness shall be built up for ever; in the very heavens wilt thou establish thy faithfulness.

³ I have made a covenant with mine elect, I have sworn unto David my servant:

⁴ Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne from generation to generation. Selah.

⁵ And the heavens shall celebrate thy wonders, O Jehovah, and thy faithfulness in the congregation of the saints.

⁶ For who in the heaven can be compared to Jehovah? [who] among the sons of the mighty shall be likened to Jehovah?

⁷ God is greatly to be feared in the council of the saints, and terrible for all that are round about him.

⁸ Jehovah, God of hosts, who is like unto thee, the strong Jah? And thy faithfulness is round about thee.

⁹ *Thou* rulest the pride of the sea: when its waves arise, *thou* stillest them.

¹⁰ Thou hast crushed Rahab as one that is slain; thou hast scattered thine enemies with the arm of thy strength.

¹¹ Thine are the heavens, the earth also is thine; the world and its fulness, *thou* hast founded them.

¹² The north and the south, *thou* hast created them: Tabor and Hermon triumph in thy name.

¹³ Thine is the arm of might: strong is thy hand, high is thy right hand.

¹⁴ Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of thy throne; loving-kindness and truth go before thy face.

¹⁵ Blessed is the people that know the shout of joy: they walk, O Jehovah, in the light of thy countenance.

¹⁶ In thy name are they joyful all the day, and in thy righteousness are they exalted.

¹⁷ For thou art the glory of their strength; and in thy favour our horn shall be exalted.

¹⁸ For Jehovah is our shield, and the Holy One of Israel, our king.

33 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign; and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.

² And he did evil in the sight of Jehovah, like the abominations of the nations that Jehovah had dispossessed from before the children of Israel.

³ And he built again the high places that Hezekiah his father had broken down; and he reared up altars to the Baals, and made Asherahs, and worshipped all the host of heaven and served them.

⁴ And he built altars in the house of Jehovah, of which Jehovah had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be for ever.

⁵ And he built altars to all the host of heaven in both courts of the house of Jehovah.

⁶ He also caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom; and he used magic and divination and sorcery, and appointed necromancers and soothsayers: he wrought evil beyond measure in the sight of Jehovah, to provoke him to anger.

⁷ And he set the graven image of the idol that he had made, in the house of God, of which God had said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house, and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put my name for ever;

⁸ neither will I any more remove the foot of Israel from out of the land that I have appointed to your fathers; if they will only take heed to do all that I commanded them through Moses, according to all the law and the statutes and the ordinances.

⁹ And Manasseh led Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray, to do more evil than the nations that Jehovah had destroyed from before the children of Israel.

¹⁰ And Jehovah spoke to Manasseh and to his people; but they did not hearken.

¹¹ And Jehovah brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with fetters, and bound him with chains of brass, and carried him to Babylon.

¹² And when he was in affliction, he besought Jehovah his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,

¹³ and prayed to him. And he was intreated of him and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that Jehovah, he was God.

¹⁴ And after this he built the outer wall of the city of David, on the west, toward Gihon, in the valley, even to the entrance of the fish-gate, and carried it round Ophel, and raised it up a very great height; and he put captains of war in all the fortified cities of Judah.

¹⁵ And he removed the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of Jehovah, and all the altars that he had built on the mount of the house of Jehovah and in Jerusalem, and cast [them] out of the city.

¹⁶ And he reinstated the altar of Jehovah, and sacrificed on it peace-offerings and thank-offerings, and commanded Judah to serve Jehovah the God of Israel.

¹⁷ Nevertheless, the people sacrificed still on the high places, although to Jehovah their God only.

11 Now faith is [the] substantiating of things hoped for, [the] conviction of things not seen.

² For in [the power of] this the elders have obtained testimony.

³ By faith we apprehend that the worlds were framed by [the] word of God, so that that which is seen should not take its origin from things which appear.

⁴ By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained testimony of being righteous, God bearing testimony to his gifts, and by it, having died, he yet speaks.

⁵ By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him; for before [his] translation he has the testimony that he had pleased God.

⁶ But without faith [it is] impossible to please [him]. For he that draws near to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them who seek him out.

⁷ By faith, Noah, oracularly warned concerning things not yet seen, moved with fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his house; by which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which [is] according to faith.