Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹ Does Wisdom not call?
    Does Understanding not lift up her voice?
² On the heights, by the wayside,
    at the crossroads—she takes her stand;
³ by the gates leading into the city,
    at the roads of access she cries out:
⁴ “I call out to you, O men;
    my appeal is to the sons of men.

²² “The Lord created me as the firstborn of his ways,
    before the oldest of his works.
²³ I was established in the earliest times,
    at the beginning, before the earth.
²⁴ I was brought forth when there were no ocean depths,
    when there were no springs overflowing with water.
²⁵ Before the mountains had been shaped,
    before the hills, I was brought forth,
²⁶ when he had not yet made the earth and the fields
    or the mass of the world’s soil.
²⁷ “When he set the heavens in place, I was there,
    when he designated where the ocean and the horizon^[b] meet,
²⁸ when he fixed the canopy of the clouds above
    and limited the fountains of the deep,
²⁹ when he assigned the boundaries of the sea
    so that the waters would not transgress his command,
and when he established the foundations of the earth,
³⁰     then I was beside him as a master craftsman,^[c]
and I was his delight day after day,
    exulting in his presence continually,
³¹ rejoicing in his inhabited world
    and delighting in the children of men.^[d]

² O Lord, our Lord,
    how glorious is your name^[c] in all the earth!
    You have exalted your majesty above the heavens.
³ Out of the mouths of newborn babes and infants^[d]
    you have brought forth praise
as a bulwark against your foes,
    to silence the enemy and the avenger.
⁴ When I look up at your heavens
    that have been formed by your fingers,
the moon and the stars
    that you set in place,
⁵ what is man that you are mindful of him,
    the son of man^[e] that you care for him?
⁶ You have made him a little less than the angels^[f]
    and crowned him with glory and honor.
⁷ You have given him dominion over the works of your hands
    and placed everything under his feet:
⁸ all sheep and oxen
    as well as the beasts of the field,
⁹ the birds of the air, the fish of the sea,
    and whatever swims in the paths of the sea.
¹⁰ O Lord, our Lord,
    how glorious is your name in all the earth!

¹² “I have much more to tell you,
but you would not be able to bear it now.
¹³ But when the Spirit of truth comes,
he will guide you into all the truth.
He will not speak on his own authority,
but he will speak what he hears,
and he will declare to you
the things that are coming.
¹⁴ He will glorify me,
for he will take what is mine
and communicate it to you.
¹⁵ Everything that the Father has is mine.
That is why I said
that he will take what is mine
and communicate it to you.