Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

30 I will praise you, Lord, for you have saved me from my enemies. You refuse to let them triumph over me. ² O Lord my God, I pleaded with you, and you gave me my health again. ³ You brought me back from the brink of the grave, from death itself, and here I am alive!

⁴ Oh, sing to him you saints of his; give thanks to his holy name. ⁵ His anger lasts a moment; his favor lasts for life! Weeping may go on all night, but in the morning there is joy.

^6-7 In my prosperity I said, “This is forever; nothing can stop me now! The Lord has shown me his favor. He has made me steady as a mountain.” Then, Lord, you turned your face away from me and cut off your river of blessings.^[a] Suddenly my courage was gone; I was terrified and panic-stricken. ⁸ I cried to you, O Lord; oh, how I pled: ⁹ “What will you gain, O Lord, from killing me? How can I praise you then to all my friends? How can my dust in the grave speak out and tell the world about your faithfulness? ¹⁰ Hear me, Lord; oh, have pity and help me.” ¹¹ Then he turned my sorrow into joy! He took away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy ¹² so that I might sing glad praises to the Lord instead of lying in silence in the grave. O Lord my God, I will keep on thanking you forever!

6 The year King Uzziah died I saw the Lord! He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the Temple was filled with his glory. ² Hovering about him were mighty, six-winged angels of fire. With two of their wings they covered their faces, with two others they covered their feet, and with two they flew. ³ In a great antiphonal chorus they sang, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is filled with his glory.” ⁴ Such singing it was! It shook the Temple to its foundations, and suddenly the entire sanctuary was filled with smoke.

4 Then as I looked, I saw a door standing open in heaven, and the same voice I had heard before, which sounded like a mighty trumpet blast, spoke to me and said, “Come up here and I will show you what must happen in the future!”

² And instantly I was in spirit there in heaven and saw—oh, the glory of it!—a throne and someone sitting on it! ³ Great bursts of light flashed forth from him as from a glittering diamond or from a shining ruby, and a rainbow glowing like an emerald encircled his throne. ⁴ Twenty-four smaller thrones surrounded his, with twenty-four Elders sitting on them; all were clothed in white, with golden crowns upon their heads. ⁵ Lightning and thunder issued from the throne, and there were voices in the thunder. Directly in front of his throne were seven lighted lamps representing the sevenfold Spirit of God.^{[a] 6} Spread out before it was a shiny crystal sea. Four Living Beings, dotted front and back with eyes, stood at the throne’s four sides. ⁷ The first of these Living Beings was in the form of a lion; the second looked like an ox; the third had the face of a man; and the fourth, the form of an eagle, with wings spread out as though in flight. ⁸ Each of these Living Beings had six wings, and the central sections of their wings were covered with eyes. Day after day and night after night they kept on saying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty—the one who was, and is, and is to come.”

⁹ And when the Living Beings gave glory and honor and thanks to the one sitting on the throne, who lives forever and ever, ¹⁰ the twenty-four Elders fell down before him and worshiped him, the Eternal Living One, and cast their crowns before the throne, singing, ¹¹ “O Lord, you are worthy to receive the glory and the honor and the power, for you have created all things. They were created and called into being by your act of will.”