Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁵ Thus will I bless thee all my life long: and in thy name I will lift up my hands.

⁶ Let my soul be filled as with marrow and fatness: and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips.

⁷ If I have remembered thee upon my bed, I will meditate on thee in the morning:

⁸ Because thou hast been my helper. And I will rejoice under the covert of thy wings:

⁹ My soul hath stuck close to thee: thy right hand hath received me.

¹⁰ But they have sought my soul in vain, they shall go into the lower parts of the earth:

¹¹ They shall be delivered into the hands of the sword, they shall be the portions of foxes.

¹² But the king shall rejoice in God, all they shall be praised that swear by him: because the mouth is stopped of them that speak wicked things.

⁷ Thou hast deceived me, O Lord, and I am deceived: thou hast been stronger than I, and thou hast prevailed. I am become a laughing-stock all the day, all scoff at me.

⁸ For I am speaking now this long time, crying out against iniquity, and I often proclaim devastation: and the word of the Lord is made a reproach to me, and a derision all the day.

⁹ Then I said: I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name: and there came in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was wearied, not being able to bear it.

¹⁰ For I heard the reproaches of many, and terror on every side: Persecute him, and let us persecute him: from all the men that were my familiars, and continued at my side: if by any means he may be deceived, and we may prevail against him, and be revenged on him.

¹¹ But the Lord is with me as a strong warrior: therefore they that persecute me shall fall, and shall be weak: they shall be greatly confounded, because they have not understood the everlasting reproach, which never shall be effaced.

¹² And thou, O Lord of hosts, prover of the just, who seest the reins and the heart: let me see, I beseech thee, thy vengeance on them: for to thee I have laid open my cause.

¹³ Sing ye to the Lord, praise the Lord: because he hath delivered the soul of the poor out of the hand of the wicked.

3 Behold this second epistle I write to you, my dearly beloved, in which I stir up by way of admonition your sincere mind:

² That you may be mindful of those words which I told you before from the holy prophets, and of your apostles, of the precepts of the Lord and Saviour.

³ Knowing this first, that in the last days there shall come deceitful scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

⁴ Saying: Where is his promise or his coming? for since the time that the fathers slept, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

⁵ For this they are wilfully ignorant of, that the heavens were before, and the earth out of water, and through water, consisting by the word of God.

⁶ Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.

⁷ But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of the ungodly men.