Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 30

A Psalm; a Song at the Dedication of the Temple. [A Psalm] of David.

¹ I will extol You, O Lord, for You have lifted me up and have not let my foes rejoice over me.

² O Lord my God, I cried to You and You have healed me.

³ O Lord, You have brought my life up from Sheol (the place of the dead); You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit (the grave).

⁴ Sing to the Lord, O you saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.

⁵ For His anger is but for a moment, but His favor is for a lifetime or in His favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.^(A)

⁶ As for me, in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved.

⁷ By Your favor, O Lord, You have established me as a strong mountain; You hid Your face, and I was troubled.

⁸ I cried to You, O Lord, and to the Lord I made supplication.

⁹ What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit (the grave)? Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your truth and faithfulness to men?

¹⁰ Hear, O Lord, have mercy and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!

¹¹ You have turned my mourning into dancing for me; You have put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness,

¹² To the end that my tongue and my heart and everything glorious within me may sing praise to You and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

2 How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with a cloud in His anger! He has cast down from heaven to the earth the beauty and splendor of Israel and has not [earnestly] remembered His footstool in the day of His anger!

² The Lord has swallowed up all the country places and habitations of Jacob and has spared not nor pitied; He has demolished in His wrath the strongholds of the Daughter of Judah. He has cast down to the ground the kingdom and its rulers, polluting them and depriving them of their sanctity.

³ He has broken off in His fierce anger every horn (means of defense) of Israel. He has drawn back His right hand from before the enemy. And He has burned amidst Jacob like a flaming fire consuming all around.

⁴ He has bent His bow like an enemy; He has stood with His right hand set like a foe and has slain all the delights and pride of the eye; on and in the tent of the Daughter of Zion He has poured out His wrath like fire.

⁵ The Lord has become like an enemy; He has destroyed Israel. He has destroyed all its palaces, has laid in ruins its strongholds, and has multiplied in the Daughter of Judah groaning and moaning and lamentation.

⁶ And He has violently broken down His temple like a booth or hedge of a garden; He has destroyed the place of His appointed assembly. The Lord has caused the solemn appointed feasts and Sabbaths to be forgotten in Zion and has spurned and rejected in the indignation of His anger the king and the priest.

⁷ The Lord has scorned, rejected, and cast off His altar; He has abhorred and disowned His sanctuary. He has given into the hand of the enemy the walls of her palaces [and high buildings]; they have raised a clamor in the house of the Lord as on a day of a solemn appointed feast.

⁸ The Lord purposed to lay in ruins the [city] wall of the Daughter of Zion. He marked it off by measuring line; He restrained not His hand from destroying. He made rampart and wall lament; they languished together.

⁹ Her gates have sunk into the ground; He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are [exiled] among the nations; the law is no more; her prophets also obtain no vision from the Lord.

¹⁰ The elders of the Daughter of Zion sit on the ground keeping silent; they have cast dust on their heads, they have girded themselves with sackcloth. The maidens of Jerusalem have bowed their heads to the ground [says Jeremiah].

¹¹ My eyes fail from weeping, my emotions are deeply disturbed, my heart is poured out upon the ground [in grief] because of the destruction of the daughter of my people, because infants and nurslings faint in the streets of the city.

¹² They keep crying to their mothers, Where is corn and wine [food and drink]? as they faint like wounded men in the streets of the city, as their lives ebb away on their mothers’ bosom.

8 We want to tell you further, brethren, about the grace (the favor and spiritual blessing) of God which has been evident in the churches of Macedonia [arousing in them the desire to give alms];

² For in the midst of an ordeal of severe tribulation, their abundance of joy and their depth of poverty [together] have overflowed in wealth of lavish generosity on their part.

³ For, as I can bear witness, [they gave] according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability; and [they did it] voluntarily,

⁴ Begging us most insistently for the favor and the fellowship of contributing in this ministration for [the relief and support of] the saints [in Jerusalem].

⁵ Nor [was this gift of theirs merely the contribution] that we expected, but first they gave themselves to the Lord and to us [as His agents] by the will of God [^[a]entirely disregarding their personal interests, they gave as much as they possibly could, having put themselves at our disposal to be directed by the will of God]—

⁶ So much so that we have urged Titus that as he began it, he should also complete this beneficent and gracious contribution among you [the church at Corinth].

⁷ Now as you abound and excel and are at the front in everything—in faith, in expressing yourselves, in knowledge, in all zeal, and in your love for us—[see to it that you come to the front now and] abound and excel in this gracious work [of almsgiving] also.