Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
11 Teach me Your way, O Lord,
that I will walk in Your truth;
bind my heart
to fear Your name.
12 I will give You thanks, O Lord my God, with all my heart,
and I will glorify Your name forever.
13 For great is Your mercy toward me,
and You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.
14 O God, insolent men have risen against me,
and bands of violent men have sought my life;
they have not set You before them.
15 But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion and gracious,
slow to anger, and abundant in mercy and truth.
16 Turn to me and have mercy on me;
give Your strength to Your servant,
and save the humble son of Your female servant.
17 Show me a sign of Your favor,
that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed
because You, Lord, have helped and comforted me.
9 Those who make a graven image are, all of them, vain,
and their delectable things shall not profit;
and they are their own witnesses;
they do not see nor know, that they may be ashamed.
10 Who has formed a god or molded a graven image
that is profitable for nothing?
11 All his companions shall be ashamed;
and the workmen, they are mere men.
Let them all be gathered together; let them stand up,
yet they shall fear; they shall be ashamed together.
12 The smith with the tongs
both works in the coals
and fashions it with hammers,
and works it with the strength of his arms.
He becomes hungry, and his strength fails;
He drinks no water and is faint.
13 The carpenter stretches out his measuring line;
he marks it out with a line;
he fits it with planes,
and he marks it out with the compass,
and makes it after the figure of a man,
according to the beauty of a man,
that it may remain in the house.
14 He hews down cedars for himself,
and takes the cypress and the oak,
which he raises for himself among the trees of the forest.
He plants a fir, and the rain makes it grow.
15 Then it shall be for a man to burn,
for he will take some of it and warm himself;
he kindles it and bakes bread;
he also makes a god and worships it;
he makes it a graven image and bows down to it.
16 He burns half of it in the fire;
over this half he eats meat;
he roasts it and is satisfied.
Also he warms himself and says,
“Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire.”
17 And the rest he makes into a god, even his carved image.
He falls down to it, and worships it,
and prays to it, and says,
“Deliver me, for you are my god.”
Sure Promise of God
13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could vow by no one greater, He vowed by Himself, 14 saying, “Surely I will bless you, and surely I will multiply you.”[a] 15 So after Abraham had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.
16 For men indeed swear by a greater authority than themselves, and for them an oath of confirmation ends all dispute. 17 So God, wanting to show more abundantly the immutability of His counsel to the heirs of promise, confirmed it by an oath. 18 So that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. 19 We have this hope as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, which enters the Inner Place behind the veil. 20 This is where Jesus has entered for us as a forerunner, since He has become the everlasting High Priest in the order of Melchizedek.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.