Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
MEM
97 Oh how love I thy law! it is my meditation [a]continually.
98 By thy commandments thou hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me.
99 I have had more [b]understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.
100 I understood more than the ancient, because I kept thy precepts.
101 I have refrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep thy word.
102 I have not declined from thy judgments: for [c]thou didst teach me.
103 How sweet are thy promises unto my mouth! yea, more than honey unto my mouth.
104 By thy precepts I have gotten understanding: therefore I hate all the ways of falsehood.
16 But they and our fathers behaved themselves proudly and hardened their neck, so that they hearkened not unto thy Commandments,
17 But refused to obey, and would not remember thy marvelous works that thou hadst done for them, but hardened their necks, and had in their heads to return to their bondage by their rebellion: but thou, O God of mercies, gracious and full of compassion, of long-suffering, and of great mercy, yet forsookest them not.
18 Moreover, when they made them a molten calf (and said, This is thy God that brought thee up out of the land of Egypt) and committed great blasphemies,
19 Yet thou for thy great mercies forsookest them not in the wilderness: (A)the pillar of the cloud departed not from them by day to lead them the way, neither the pillar of fire by night, to show them light, and the way whereby they should go.
20 Thou gavest also thy good Spirit to instruct them, and withheldest not thy Manna from their mouth, and gavest them water for their thirst.
21 Thou didst also feed them forty years in the wilderness: they lacked nothing: (B)their clothes waxed not old, and their feet [a]swelled not.
22 And thou gavest them kingdoms and people, and [b]scatteredst them into corners: so they possessed (C)the land of Sihon, and the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og king of Bashan.
23 And thou didst multiply their children like the stars of the heaven, and broughtest them into the land, whereof thou hadst spoken unto their fathers, that they should go, and possess it.
24 So the children went in, and possessed the land, and thou subduedst before them the inhabitants of the land, even the Canaanites, and gavest them into their hands, with their kings and the people of the land, that they might do with them what they would.
25 And they took their strong cities and the fat land, and possessed houses full of all goods, cisterns dug out, vineyards and olives, and trees for food in abundance, and they did eat, and were filled, and became fat, and lived in pleasure through thy great goodness.
26 Yet they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy Law behind their backs, and slew thy Prophets (which [c]protested among them to turn them unto thee) and committed great blasphemies.
27 Therefore thou deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies that vexed them: yet in the time of their affliction, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from the heaven, and through thy great mercies thou gavest them saviors, who saved them out of the hand of their adversaries.
28 But when they had [d]rest, they returned to do evil before thee: therefore leftest thou them in the hand of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them, yet when they converted and cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven, and deliveredst them according to thy great mercies many times,
29 And protestedst among them, that thou mightest bring them again unto thy Law: but they behaved themselves proudly, and hearkened not unto thy commandments, but sinned against thy judgments ((D)which a man should do and live in them) and [e]pulled away the shoulder, and were stiff-necked, and would not [f]hear.
30 Yet thou [g]didst forbear them many years, and protestedst among them by thy Spirit, even by the hand of thy Prophets, but they would not hear: therefore gavest thou them into the hand of the people of the lands.
31 Yet for thy great mercies thou hast not consumed them, neither forsaken them: for thou art a gracious and merciful God.
21 ¶ [a]But that ye may also know mine affairs, and what I do, Tychicus my dear brother and faithful minister in the Lord, shall show you of all things.
22 Whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that ye might know mine affairs, and that he might comfort your hearts.
23 Peace be with the brethren, and love with faith from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
24 Grace be with all them which love our Lord Jesus Christ, to their [b]immortality, Amen.
¶ Written from Rome unto the Ephesians, and sent by Tychicus.
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