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.

¹⁶ But they and our fathers acted presumptuously and stiffened their necks, and did not heed Your commandments.

¹⁷ They refused to obey, nor were they mindful of Your wonders and miracles which You did among them; but they stiffened their necks and in their rebellion appointed a captain, that they might return to their bondage [in Egypt]. But You are a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great steadfast love; and You did not forsake them.

¹⁸ Even when they had made for themselves a molten calf and said, This is your god, who brought you out of Egypt, and had committed great and contemptible blasphemies,

¹⁹ You in Your great mercy forsook them not in the wilderness; the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day to lead them in the way, nor the pillar of fire by night to light the way they should go.

²⁰ You also gave Your good Spirit to instruct them, and withheld not Your manna from them, and gave water for their thirst.

²¹ Forty years You sustained them in the wilderness; they lacked nothing, their clothes did not wear out, and their feet did not swell.

²² Also You gave them kingdoms and peoples and allotted to them every corner. So they possessed the land of Sihon king of Heshbon and the land of Og king of Bashan.

²³ Their children You also multiplied as the stars of heaven and brought them into the land which You told their fathers they should go in and possess.

²⁴ So the descendants went in and possessed the land; and You subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gave them into their hands, with their kings and the peoples of the land, that they might do with them as they would.

²⁵ And they captured fortified cities and a rich land and took possession of houses full of all good things, cisterns hewn out, vineyards, olive orchards, and fruit trees in abundance. So they ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in Your great goodness.

²⁶ Yet they were disobedient and rebelled against You and cast Your law behind their back and killed Your prophets who accused and warned them to turn to You again; and they committed great and contemptible blasphemies.

²⁷ Therefore You delivered them into the hand of their enemies, who distressed them. In the time of their suffering when they cried to You, You heard them from heaven, and according to Your abundant mercy You gave them deliverers, who saved them from their enemies.

²⁸ But after they had rest, they did evil again before You; therefore You left them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them. Yet when they turned and cried to You, You heard them from heaven, and many times You delivered them according to Your mercies,

²⁹ And reproved and warned them, that You might bring them again to Your law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not heed Your commandments, but sinned against Your ordinances, which by keeping, a man shall live. And they turned a stubborn shoulder, stiffened their neck, and would not listen.

³⁰ Yet You bore with them many years more and reproved and warned them by Your Spirit through Your prophets; still they would not listen. Therefore You gave them into the power of the peoples of the lands.

³¹ Yet in Your great mercies You did not utterly consume them or forsake them, for You are a gracious and merciful God.

²¹ Now that you may know how I am and what I am doing, Tychicus, the beloved brother and faithful minister in the Lord [and His service], will tell you everything.

²² I have sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may ^[a]console and cheer and encourage and strengthen your hearts.

²³ Peace be to the brethren, and love joined with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).

²⁴ Grace (God’s undeserved favor) be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with undying and incorruptible [love]. Amen (so let it be).