Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 33

¹ Rejoice in the Lord, O you [uncompromisingly] righteous [you upright in right standing with God]; for praise is becoming and appropriate for those who are upright [in heart].

² Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre; sing praises to Him with the harp of ten strings.

³ Sing to Him a new song; play skillfully [on the strings] with a loud and joyful sound.

⁴ For the word of the Lord is right; and all His work is done in faithfulness.

⁵ He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the loving-kindness of the Lord.

⁶ By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all their host by the breath of His mouth.^(A)

⁷ He gathers the waters of the sea as in a bottle; He puts the deeps in storage places.

⁸ Let all the earth fear the Lord [revere and worship Him]; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.

⁹ For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.

¹⁰ The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nought; He makes the thoughts and plans of the peoples of no effect.

¹¹ The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of His heart through all generations.

¹² Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He has chosen as His heritage.

13 So Abram went up out of Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the South [country of Judah, the Negeb].

² Now Abram was extremely rich in livestock and in silver and in gold.

³ And he journeyed on from the South [country of Judah, the Negeb] as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai,

⁴ Where he had built an altar at first; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.^(A)

⁵ But Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents.

⁶ Now the land was not able to nourish and support them so they could dwell together, for their possessions were too great for them to live together.

⁷ And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s cattle and the herdsmen of Lot’s cattle. And the Canaanite and the Perizzite were dwelling then in the land [making fodder more difficult to obtain].

⁸ So Abram said to Lot, Let there be no strife, I beg of you, between you and me, or between your herdsmen and my herdsmen, for we are relatives.

⁹ Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself, I beg of you, from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you choose the right hand, then I will go to the left.

¹⁰ And Lot looked and saw that everywhere the Jordan Valley was well watered. Before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, [it was all] like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as you go to Zoar.

¹¹ Then Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley and [he] traveled east. So they separated.

¹² Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the [Jordan] Valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom and dwelt there.

¹³ But the men of Sodom were wicked and exceedingly great sinners against the Lord.

¹⁴ The Lord said to Abram after Lot had left him, Lift up now your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward;

¹⁵ For all the land which you see I will give to you and to your posterity forever.^(B)

¹⁶ And I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth, so that if a man could count the dust of the earth, then could your descendants also be counted.^(C)

¹⁷ Arise, walk through the land, the length of it and the breadth of it, for I will give it to you.

¹⁸ Then Abram moved his tent and came and dwelt among the oaks or terebinths of Mamre, which are at Hebron, and built there an altar to the Lord.

¹⁷ These are springs without water and mists driven along before a tempest, for whom is reserved forever the gloom of darkness.

¹⁸ For uttering loud boasts of folly, they beguile and lure with lustful desires of the flesh those who are barely escaping from them who are wrongdoers.

¹⁹ They promise them liberty, when they themselves are the slaves of depravity and defilement—for by whatever anyone is made inferior or worse or is overcome, to that [person or thing] he is enslaved.

²⁰ For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through [the full, personal] knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they again become entangled in them and are overcome, their last condition is worse [for them] than the first.

²¹ For never to have obtained a [full, personal] knowledge of the way of righteousness would have been better for them than, having obtained [such knowledge], to turn back from the holy commandment which was [verbally] delivered to them.

²² There has befallen them the thing spoken of in the true proverb, The dog turns back to his own vomit, and, The sow is washed only to wallow again in the mire.^(A)