Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁹⁷ Oh, how love I Your law! It is my meditation all the day.^(A)

⁹⁸ You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies, for [Your words] are ever before me.

⁹⁹ I have better understanding and deeper insight than all my teachers, because Your testimonies are my meditation.^(B)

¹⁰⁰ I understand more than the aged, because I keep Your precepts [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying them].

¹⁰¹ I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep Your word [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying it].^(C)

¹⁰² I have not turned aside from Your ordinances, for You Yourself have taught me.

¹⁰³ How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!^(D)

¹⁰⁴ Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.

9 Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month, the Israelites were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth and with earth upon their heads.

² And the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers.

³ And they stood in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a fourth of the day, and for another fourth of it they confessed and worshiped the Lord their God.

⁴ On the stairs of the Levites stood Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani, and they cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God.

⁵ Then the Levites—Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah—said, Stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be Your glorious name which is exalted above all blessing and praise.

⁶ [And Ezra said], You are the Lord, You alone; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and You preserve them all, and the hosts of heaven worship You.

⁷ You are the Lord, the God Who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldees and gave him the name Abraham.

⁸ You found his heart faithful before You, and You made the covenant with him to give his descendants the land of the Canaanite, Hittite, Amorite, Perizzite, Jebusite, and Girgashite. And You have fulfilled Your promise, for You are just and righteous.

⁹ You saw our fathers’ affliction in Egypt, and You heard their cry at the Red Sea.

¹⁰ You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh and all his servants and all the people of his land, for You knew that they dealt insolently against the Israelites. And You got for Yourself a name, as it is today.

¹¹ You divided the sea before them, so that they went through its midst on dry land; their persecutors You threw into the depths, as a stone into mighty waters.

¹² Moreover, by a pillar of cloud You led them by day, and by a pillar of fire by night to light the way they should go.

¹³ You came down also upon Mount Sinai and spoke with them from Heaven and gave them right ordinances and true laws, good statutes and commandments.

¹⁴ And You made known to them Your holy Sabbath and gave them commandments, statutes, and a law through Moses Your servant.

¹⁵ You gave them bread from heaven for their hunger and brought water for them out of the rock for their thirst; and You told them to go in and possess the land You had sworn to give them.^(A)

²¹ Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

²² Wives, be subject (be submissive and adapt yourselves) to your own husbands as [a service] to the Lord.

²³ For the husband is head of the wife as Christ is the Head of the church, Himself the Savior of [His] body.

²⁴ As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her,

²⁶ So that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word,

²⁷ That He might present the church to Himself in glorious splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such things [that she might be holy and faultless].

²⁸ Even so husbands should love their wives as [being in a sense] their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.

²⁹ For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and carefully protects and cherishes it, as Christ does the church,

³⁰ Because we are members (parts) of His body.

³¹ For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.^(A)

³² This mystery is very great, but I speak concerning [the relation of] Christ and the church.

³³ However, let each man of you [without exception] love his wife as [being in a sense] his very own self; and let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband [^[a]that she notices him, regards him, honors him, prefers him, venerates, and esteems him; and ^[b]that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly].^(B)

6 Children, obey your parents in the Lord [as His representatives], for this is just and right.

² Honor (esteem and value as precious) your father and your mother—this is the first commandment with a promise—^(C)

³ That all may be well with you and that you may live long on the earth.

⁴ Fathers, do not irritate and provoke your children to anger [do not exasperate them to resentment], but rear them [tenderly] in the training and discipline and the counsel and admonition of the Lord.

⁵ Servants (slaves), be obedient to those who are your physical masters, having respect for them and eager concern to please them, in singleness of motive and with all your heart, as [service] to Christ [Himself]—

⁶ Not in the way of eye-service [as if they were watching you] and only to please men, but as servants (slaves) of Christ, doing the will of God heartily and with your whole soul;

⁷ Rendering service readily with goodwill, as to the Lord and not to men,

⁸ Knowing that for whatever good anyone does, he will receive his reward from the Lord, whether he is slave or free.

⁹ You masters, act on the same [principle] toward them and give up threatening and using violent and abusive words, knowing that He Who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no respect of persons (no partiality) with Him.