Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

120 I called to the LORD in my trouble and He heard me.

² Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.

³ What shall be given to you, false tongue; or what shall be done to you:

⁴ the sharp arrows of a mighty man and the coals of a juniper.

⁵ Woe is me, that I remain in Meshech and dwell in the tents of Kedar!

⁶ For too long my soul has dwelt with him who hates peace.

⁷ I seek peace; and when I speak, they are bent to war. A song of degrees

1 Now in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia (so that the Word of the LORD, by the mouth of Jeremiah, might be accomplished) the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia. And he made a proclamation through all his kingdom, and also by writing, saying,

² “Thus says Cyrus, king of Persia, ‘The LORD God of Heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the Earth. And He has Commanded me to build Him a House in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.

³ ‘Who is he among you of all His people with whom his God is? Let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the House of the LORD God of Israel. He is the God Who is in Jerusalem.

⁴ “And anyone who remains in any place where he has sojourned, let the men of his place support him with silver and with gold and with goods and with cattle, a willing offering for the House of God that is in Jerusalem.”

⁵ Then, the chief fathers of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites rose up with all those whose spirit God had raised up to go, to build the House of the LORD which is in Jerusalem.

⁶ And all those who were around them strengthened their hands with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods and with cattle, and with precious things, besides all that was willingly offered.

⁷ Also, King Cyrus brought forth the vessels of the House of the LORD which Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of Jerusalem and put in the house of his god.

⁸ Cyrus, king of Persia, brought them forth by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and counted them to Sheshbazzar, the prince of Judah.

⁹ And this is the number of them: thirty basins of gold, one thousand basins of silver, twenty-nine knives,

¹⁰ thirty bowls of gold, four hundred ten silver bowls of the second sort, and one thousand other vessels.

¹¹ All the vessels of gold and silver were five thousand four hundred. Sheshbazzar brought up all with those of the captivity who came up from Babel to Jerusalem.

¹² For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience: that in simplicity and godly purity, not in fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and most of all towards you.

¹³ For we write no other things to you than what you read and understand. And I hope you shall understand even to the end,

¹⁴ as you have understood us partly, that we are your exultation, even as you are ours, on the day of our Lord Jesus.

¹⁵ And in this confidence, I initially intended to come to you. So that you might have had a second grace;

¹⁶ and to pass by you into Macedonia; and to come again to you, out of Macedonia; and to be led forth by you toward Judea.

¹⁷ Therefore, when I was thus-minded did I use lightness? Or do I purpose those things which I purpose according to the flesh, that with me should be, “Yes, yes”, and “No, no”?

¹⁸ But God is faithful. So that our word toward you was not “Yes”, and “No”.

¹⁹ For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, Who was preached among you by us - by me, and Silvanus, and Timothy - was not “Yes” and “No”. But in Him was “Yes”.