Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁶ Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; the scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.

⁷ You love righteousness, uprightness, and right standing with God and hate wickedness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows.^(A)

⁸ Your garments are all fragrant with myrrh, aloes, and cassia; stringed instruments make You glad.

⁹ Kings’ daughters are among Your honorable women; at Your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.

¹⁰ Hear, O daughter, consider, submit, and consent to my instruction: forget also your own people and your father’s house;

¹¹ So will the King desire your beauty; because He is your Lord, be submissive and reverence and honor Him.

¹² And, O daughter of Tyre, the richest of the people shall entreat your favor with a gift.

¹³ The King’s daughter in the inner part [of the palace] is all glorious; her clothing is inwrought with gold.^(B)

¹⁴ She shall be brought to the King in raiment of needlework; with the virgins, her companions that follow her, she shall be brought to You.

¹⁵ With gladness and rejoicing will they be brought; they will enter into the King’s palace.

¹⁶ Instead of Your fathers shall be Your sons, whom You will make princes in all the land.

¹⁷ I will make Your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore shall the people praise and give You thanks forever and ever.

3 Then said the Lord to me, Go again, love [the same] woman [Gomer] who is beloved of a paramour and is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins [used in the sacrificial feasts in idol worship].

² So I bought her for ^[a]fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley [the price of a slave].

³ And I said to her, You shall be [betrothed] to me for many days; you shall not play the harlot and you shall not belong to another man. So will I also be to you [until you have proved your loyalty to me and our marital relations may be resumed].

⁴ For the children of Israel shall dwell and sit deprived many days, without king or prince, without sacrifice or [idolatrous] pillar, and without ephod [a garment worn by priests when seeking divine counsel] or teraphim (household gods).

⁵ Afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord their God, [inquiring of and requiring Him] and [from the line of] David, their King [of kings]; and they shall come in [anxious] fear to the Lord and to His goodness and His good things in the latter days.^(A)

²³ But I call upon God as my soul’s witness: it was to avoid hurting you that I refrained from coming to Corinth—

²⁴ Not that we have dominion [over you] and lord it over your faith, but [rather that we work with you as] fellow laborers [to promote] your joy, for in [your] faith (^[a]in your strong and welcome conviction or belief that Jesus is the Messiah, through Whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God) you stand firm.

2 But I definitely made up my mind not to grieve you with another painful and distressing visit.

² For if I cause you pain [with merited rebuke], who is there to provide me enjoyment but the [very] one whom I have grieved and made sad?

³ And I wrote the same to you so that when I came, I might not be myself pained by those who are the [very] ones who ought to make me glad, for I trusted in you all and felt confident that my joy would be shared by all of you.

⁴ For I wrote you out of great sorrow and deep distress [with mental torture and anxiety] of heart, [yes, and] with many tears, not to cause you pain but in order to make you realize the overflowing love that I continue increasingly to have for you.

⁵ But if someone [the one among you who committed incest] has caused [all this] grief and pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely, [he has distressed] all of you.

⁶ For such a one this censure by the majority [which he has received is] sufficient [punishment].

⁷ So [instead of further rebuke, now] you should rather turn and [graciously] forgive and comfort and encourage [him], to keep him from being overwhelmed by excessive sorrow and despair.

⁸ I therefore beg you to reinstate him in your affections and assure him of your love for him;

⁹ For this was my purpose in writing you, to test your attitude and see if you would stand the test, whether you are obedient and altogether agreeable [to following my orders] in everything.

¹⁰ If you forgive anyone anything, I too forgive that one; and what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sakes in the presence [and with the approval] of Christ (the Messiah),

¹¹ To keep Satan from getting the advantage over us; for we are not ignorant of his wiles and intentions.