Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 119

¹ Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are the undefiled (the upright, truly sincere, and blameless) in the way [of the revealed will of God], who walk (order their conduct and conversation) in the law of the Lord (the whole of God’s revealed will).

² Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are they who keep His testimonies, and who seek, inquire for and of Him and crave Him with the whole heart.

³ Yes, they do no unrighteousness [no willful wandering from His precepts]; they walk in His ways.^(A)

⁴ You have commanded us to keep Your precepts, that we should observe them diligently.

⁵ Oh, that my ways were directed and established to observe Your statutes [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying them]!

⁶ Then shall I not be put to shame [by failing to inherit Your promises] when I have respect to all Your commandments.

⁷ I will praise and give thanks to You with uprightness of heart when I learn [by sanctified experiences] Your righteous judgments [Your decisions against and punishments for particular lines of thought and conduct].

⁸ I will keep Your statutes; O forsake me not utterly.

³² You shall rise up before the hoary head and honor the face of the old man and [reverently] fear your God. I am the Lord.

³³ And if a stranger dwells temporarily with you in your land, you shall not suppress and mistreat him.

³⁴ But the stranger who dwells with you shall be to you as one born among you; and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

³⁵ You shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in measures of length or weight or quantity.

³⁶ You shall have accurate and just balances, just weights, just ephah and hin measures. I am the Lord your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

³⁷ You shall observe all My statutes and ordinances and do them. I am the Lord.

²¹ But now the righteousness of God has been revealed independently and altogether apart from the Law, although actually it is attested by the Law and the Prophets,

²² Namely, the righteousness of God which comes by believing with personal trust and confident reliance on Jesus Christ (the Messiah). [And it is meant] for all who believe. For there is no distinction,

²³ Since all have sinned and are falling short of the honor and glory ^[a]which God bestows and receives.

²⁴ [All] are justified and made upright and in right standing with God, freely and gratuitously by His grace (His unmerited favor and mercy), through the redemption which is [provided] in Christ Jesus,

²⁵ Whom God put forward [^[b]before the eyes of all] as a mercy seat and propitiation by His blood [the cleansing and life-giving sacrifice of atonement and reconciliation, to be received] through faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in His divine forbearance He had passed over and ignored former sins without punishment.

²⁶ It was to demonstrate and prove at the present time (^[c]in the now season) that He Himself is righteous and that He justifies and accepts as righteous him who has [true] faith in Jesus.

²⁷ Then what becomes of [our] pride and [our] boasting? It is excluded (banished, ruled out entirely). On what principle? [On the principle] of doing good deeds? No, but on the principle of faith.

²⁸ For we hold that a man is justified and made upright by faith independent of and distinctly apart from good deeds (works of the Law). [The observance of the Law has nothing to do with justification.]

²⁹ Or is God merely [the God] of Jews? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also,

³⁰ Since it is one and the same God Who will justify the circumcised by faith [^[d]which germinated from Abraham] and the uncircumcised through their [newly acquired] faith. [For it is the same trusting faith in both cases, a firmly relying faith in Jesus Christ].

³¹ Do we then by [this] faith make the Law of no effect, overthrow it or make it a dead letter? Certainly not! On the contrary, we confirm and establish and uphold the Law.