Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹ ¶ Halelu-JAH. Praise the LORD, O my soul.

² In my life I will praise the LORD; I will sing praises unto my God while I live.

³ Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man in whom there is no salvation.

⁴ His spirit shall go forth, he shall return to his earth; in that very day all his thoughts shall perish.

⁵ ¶ Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God;

⁶ who made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is therein; who keeps truth for ever:

⁷ He who does justice unto the oppressed; who gives bread to the hungry. The LORD looses the prisoners:

⁸ The LORD opens the eyes of the blind; the LORD raises those that are bowed down; the LORD loves the righteous:

⁹ The LORD preserves the strangers; he raises up the fatherless and widow; but the way of the wicked he turns upside down.

¹⁰ The LORD shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, from generation to generation. Halelu-JAH.

15 ¶ At the end of every seven years thou shalt make a release.

² And this is the manner of the release: everyone who has lent anything to his neighbour, causing him to be in debt, shall release it; he shall not exact it any more of his neighbour or of his brother, because the release of the LORD is proclaimed.

³ Of the foreigner thou shalt demand that it be repaid; but that which thy brother has of thine thy hand shall release,

⁴ so that thus there shall be no poor among you, for the LORD shall greatly bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God gives thee for an inheritance to possess it;

⁵ only if thou carefully hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep and to do all these commandments which I command thee this day.

⁶ For when the LORD thy God has blessed thee, as he promised thee, thou shalt lend unto many Gentiles, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt rule over many Gentiles, but they shall not rule over thee.

⁷ If there should be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy towns in thy land which the LORD thy God gives thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother,

⁸ but thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he lacks.

⁹ Keep thyself that there not be a thought of Belial in thy heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother to give him nothing; for he shall cry unto the LORD against thee, and it shall be a sin unto thee.

¹⁰ Thou shalt surely give unto him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him because for this thing the LORD thy God shall bless thee in all thy works and in all that thou puttest thine hand to.

¹¹ For the poor shall never cease out of the land; therefore, I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor and to thy needy, in thy land.

¹⁵ ¶ And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, so that death intervening for the redemption of the rebellions that took place under the first testament, those who are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

¹⁶ For where a testament is, there must also of necessity intervene the death of the testator.

¹⁷ For a testament is confirmed by the death: otherwise it is not valid as long as the testator lives.

¹⁸ From which came that not even the first one was dedicated without blood.

¹⁹ For when Moses had read every commandment of the law to all the people, taking the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, he sprinkled both the book and all the people,

²⁰ saying, This is the blood of the testament which God has commanded unto you.

²¹ Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry.

²² And almost all things are by the law purged with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.

²³ ¶ So that it was necessary that the figures of the heavenly things should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

²⁴ For Christ is not entered into the sanctuary made with hands (which is a figure of the true), but into the heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us,