Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁸ O Jehovah, God of Hosts, hear my prayer, Give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah.

⁹ Our shield, see, O God, And behold the face of Thine anointed,

¹⁰ For good [is] a day in Thy courts, O Teacher! I have chosen rather to be at the threshold, In the house of my God, Than to dwell in tents of wickedness.

¹¹ For a sun and a shield [is] Jehovah God, Grace and honour doth Jehovah give. He withholdeth not good To those walking in uprightness.

¹² Jehovah of Hosts! O the happiness of a man trusting in Thee.

5 Belshazzar the king hath made a great feast to a thousand of his great men, and before the thousand he is drinking wine;

² Belshazzar hath said -- while tasting the wine -- to bring in the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple that [is] in Jerusalem, that drink with them may the king, and his great men, his wives, and his concubines.

³ Then they have brought in the vessels of gold that had been taken out of the temple of the house of God that [is] in Jerusalem, and drunk with them have the king and his great men, his wives and his concubines;

⁴ they have drunk wine, and have praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone.

⁵ In that hour come forth have fingers of a man's hand, and they are writing over-against the candlestick, on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace: and the king is seeing the extremity of the hand that is writing;

⁶ then the king's countenance hath changed, and his thoughts do trouble him, and the joints of his loins are loosed, and his knees are smiting one against another.

⁷ Call doth the king mightily, to bring up the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. Answered hath the king, and said to the wise men of Babylon, that, `Any man who doth read this writing, and its interpretation doth shew me, purple he putteth on, and a bracelet of gold [is] on his neck, and third in the kingdom he doth rule.'

⁸ Then coming up are all the wise men of the king, and they are not able to read the writing, and the interpretation to make known to the king;

⁹ then the king Belshazzar is greatly troubled, and his countenance is changing in him, and his great men are perplexed.

¹⁰ The queen, on account of the words of the king and his great men, to the banquet-house hath come up. Answered hath the queen, and said, `O king, to the ages live; let not thy thoughts trouble thee, nor thy countenance be changed:

¹¹ there is a man in thy kingdom in whom [is] the spirit of the holy gods: and, in the days of thy father, light, and understanding, and wisdom -- as the wisdom of the gods -- was found in him; and king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, chief of the scribes, enchanters, Chaldeans, soothsayers, established him -- thy father, O king --

¹² because that an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and showing of enigmas, and loosing of knots was found in him, in Daniel, whose name the king made Belteshazzar: now let Daniel be called, and the interpretation he doth show.'

5 Elders who [are] among you, I exhort, who [am] a fellow-elder, and a witness of the sufferings of the Christ, and of the glory about to be revealed a partaker,

² feed the flock of God that [is] among you, overseeing not constrainedly, but willingly, neither for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind,

³ neither as exercising lordship over the heritages, but patterns becoming of the flock,

⁴ and at the manifestation of the chief Shepherd, ye shall receive the unfading crown of glory.

⁵ In like manner, ye younger, be subject to elders, and all to one another subjecting yourselves; with humble-mindedness clothe yourselves, because God the proud doth resist, but to the humble He doth give grace;

⁶ be humbled, then, under the powerful hand of God, that you He may exalt in good time,

⁷ all your care having cast upon Him, because He careth for you.

⁸ Be sober, vigilant, because your opponent the devil, as a roaring lion, doth walk about, seeking whom he may swallow up,

⁹ whom resist, stedfast in the faith, having known the same sufferings to your brotherhood in the world to be accomplished.

¹⁰ And the God of all grace, who did call you to His age-during glory in Christ Jesus, having suffered a little, Himself make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle [you];

¹¹ to Him [is] the glory, and the power -- to the ages and the ages! Amen.