Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 65[a]
Thanksgiving for God’s Blessings
1 For the leader. A psalm of David. A song.
I
2 To you we owe our hymn of praise,
O God on Zion;
To you our vows[b] must be fulfilled,
3 [c]you who hear our prayers.
To you all flesh must come(A)
4 with its burden of wicked deeds.
We are overcome by our sins;
only you can pardon them.(B)
5 Blessed the one whom you will choose and bring
to dwell in your courts.
May we be filled with the good things of your house,
your holy temple!
II
6 You answer us with awesome deeds[d] of justice,
O God our savior,
The hope of all the ends of the earth
and of those far off across the sea.(C)
7 You are robed in power,
you set up the mountains by your might.
8 You still the roaring of the seas,(D)
the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples.(E)
9 Distant peoples stand in awe of your marvels;
the places of morning and evening you make resound with joy.
10 [e]You visit the earth and water it,
make it abundantly fertile.(F)
God’s stream[f] is filled with water;
you supply their grain.
Thus do you prepare it:
11 you drench its plowed furrows,
and level its ridges.
With showers you keep it soft,
blessing its young sprouts.
12 You adorn the year with your bounty;
your paths[g] drip with fruitful rain.
13 The meadows of the wilderness also drip;
the hills are robed with joy.
14 The pastures are clothed with flocks,
the valleys blanketed with grain;
they cheer and sing for joy.(G)
14 Then the Lord said to Moses: Pharaoh is obstinate[a] in refusing to let the people go. 15 In the morning, just when he sets out for the water, go to Pharaoh and present yourself by the bank of the Nile, holding in your hand the staff that turned into a snake.[b] 16 Say to him: The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you with the message: Let my people go to serve me in the wilderness. But as yet you have not listened. 17 Thus says the Lord: This is how you will know that I am the Lord. With the staff here in my hand, I will strike the water in the Nile and it will be changed into blood.(A) 18 The fish in the Nile will die, and the Nile itself will stink so that the Egyptians will be unable to drink water from the Nile.
19 The Lord then spoke to Moses: Speak to Aaron: Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt—its streams, its canals, its ponds, and all its supplies of water—that they may become blood. There will be blood throughout the land of Egypt, even in the wooden pails and stone jars.
20 This, then, is what Moses and Aaron did, exactly as the Lord had commanded. Aaron raised his staff and struck the waters in the Nile in full view of Pharaoh and his servants, and all the water in the Nile was changed into blood. 21 The fish in the Nile died, and the Nile itself stank so that the Egyptians could not drink water from it. There was blood throughout the land of Egypt. 22 But the Egyptian magicians did the same[c] by their magic arts. So Pharaoh hardened his heart and would not listen to them, just as the Lord had said. 23 Pharaoh turned away and went into his house, with no concern even for this. 24 All the Egyptians had to dig round about the Nile for drinking water, since they could not drink any water from the Nile.
13 A south wind blew gently, and thinking they had attained their objective, they weighed anchor and sailed along close to the coast of Crete. 14 Before long an offshore wind of hurricane force called a “Northeaster” struck. 15 Since the ship was caught up in it and could not head into the wind we gave way and let ourselves be driven. 16 We passed along the sheltered side of an island named Cauda and managed only with difficulty to get the dinghy under control. 17 They hoisted it aboard, then used cables to undergird the ship. Because of their fear that they would run aground on the shoal of Syrtis, they lowered the drift anchor and were carried along in this way. 18 We were being pounded by the storm so violently that the next day they jettisoned some cargo, 19 and on the third day with their own hands they threw even the ship’s tackle overboard. 20 Neither the sun nor the stars were visible for many days, and no small storm raged. Finally, all hope of our surviving was taken away.
21 When many would no longer eat, Paul stood among them and said, “Men, you should have taken my advice and not have set sail from Crete and you would have avoided this disastrous loss. 22 I urge you now to keep up your courage; not one of you will be lost, only the ship. 23 For last night an angel of the God to whom [I] belong and whom I serve stood by me 24 and said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul. You are destined to stand before Caesar; and behold, for your sake, God has granted safety to all who are sailing with you.’(A) 25 Therefore, keep up your courage, men; I trust in God that it will turn out as I have been told. 26 We are destined to run aground on some island.”
27 On the fourteenth night, as we were still being driven about on the Adriatic Sea, toward midnight the sailors began to suspect that they were nearing land. 28 They took soundings and found twenty fathoms; a little farther on, they again took soundings and found fifteen fathoms. 29 Fearing that we would run aground on a rocky coast, they dropped four anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come. 30 The sailors then tried to abandon ship; they lowered the dinghy to the sea on the pretext of going to lay out anchors from the bow. 31 But Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved.” 32 So the soldiers cut the ropes of the dinghy and set it adrift.
33 Until the day began to dawn, Paul kept urging all to take some food. He said, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have been waiting, going hungry and eating nothing. 34 I urge you, therefore, to take some food; it will help you survive. Not a hair of the head of anyone of you will be lost.” 35 When he said this, he took bread,[a] gave thanks to God in front of them all, broke it, and began to eat.(B) 36 They were all encouraged, and took some food themselves. 37 In all, there were two hundred seventy-six of us on the ship. 38 After they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship by throwing the wheat into the sea.
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.