Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

SCHIN.

¹⁶¹ ¶ Princes have persecuted me without a cause, but my heart stands in awe of thy words.

¹⁶² ¶ I rejoice at thy spoken word, as one that finds great spoil.

¹⁶³ ¶ I hate and abhor lying, but I love thy law.

¹⁶⁴ ¶ Seven times a day do I praise thee because of the judgments of thy righteousness.

¹⁶⁵ ¶ Those who love thy law have great peace, and nothing shall cause them to stumble.

¹⁶⁶ ¶ LORD, I have waited for thy saving health and done thy commandments.

¹⁶⁷ ¶ My soul has kept thy testimonies, and I have loved them exceedingly.

¹⁶⁸ I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies, for all my ways are before thee.

¹⁷ ¶ Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah, the Tishbite, saying,

¹⁸ Arise, go down to meet Ahab, king of Israel, who is in Samaria; behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, where he is gone down to possess it.

¹⁹ And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus hath the LORD said, Hast thou murdered and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him again, saying, Thus hath the LORD said, In the same place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall the dogs also lick thy blood, even thine.

²⁰ And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O my enemy? And he answered, I have found thee because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the LORD.

²¹ Behold, I will bring evil upon thee and will burn away thy posterity and will cut off from Ahab him that pisses against the wall and he that is kept and he that is left in Israel.

²² And I will make thy house like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha, the son of Ahijah, for the provocation with which thou hast provoked me to anger and made Israel to sin.

²³ And of Jezebel, the LORD has also spoken, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the rampart of Jezreel.

²⁴ Him that dies of Ahab in the city, the dogs shall eat, and him that dies in the field, shall the fowls of the air eat.

²⁵ (Truly there was none like unto Ahab, who sold himself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD, because Jezebel his wife incited him.

²⁶ He was very abominable, following idols, according to all the things that the Amorites did, whom the LORD cast out before the sons of Israel.)

²⁷ And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted and slept in sackcloth and went softly.

²⁸ Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah, the Tishbite, saying,

²⁹ Seest thou how Ahab has humbled himself before me? Because he has humbled himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days, but in his son’s days I will bring the evil upon his house.

4 ¶ Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

² In this know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in flesh is of God:

³ And every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ is come in flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, of which ye have heard that it should come, and that now it is already in the world.

⁴ ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.

⁵ They are of the world; therefore, they speak of the world, and the world hears them.

⁶ We are of God; he that knows God hears us; he that is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.