Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
A cry of anguish, and a song of praise.
For the Chief Musician; set to [a]Aijeleth hash-Shahar. A Psalm of David.
22 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
[b]Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou answerest not;
And in the night season, [c]and am not silent.
3 But thou art holy,
O thou that [d]inhabitest the praises of Israel.
4 Our fathers trusted in thee:
They trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
5 They cried unto thee, and were delivered:
They trusted in thee, and were not put to shame.
6 But I am a worm, and no man;
A reproach of men, and despised of the people.
7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn:
They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
8 [e]Commit thyself unto Jehovah; let him deliver him:
Let him rescue him, seeing he delighteth in him.
9 But thou art he that took me out of the womb;
Thou didst make me trust when I was upon my mother’s breasts.
10 I was cast upon thee from the womb;
Thou art my God since my mother bare me.
11 Be not far from me; for trouble is near;
For there is none to help.
12 Many bulls have compassed me;
Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
13 They gape upon me with their mouth,
As a ravening and a roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint:
My heart is like wax;
It is melted within me.
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd;
And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws;
And thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
17 My spirit is consumed, my days are extinct,
The grave is ready for me.
2 Surely there are [a]mockers with me,
And mine eye dwelleth upon their provocation.
3 Give now a pledge, be surety for me with thyself;
Who is there that will strike hands with me?
4 For thou hast hid their heart from understanding:
Therefore shalt thou not exalt them.
5 He that denounceth his friends for a [b]prey,
Even the eyes of his children shall fail.
6 But he hath made me a byword of the people;
And they spit in my face.
7 Mine eye also is dim by reason of sorrow,
And all my members are as a shadow.
8 Upright men shall be astonished at this,
And the innocent shall stir up himself against the godless.
9 Yet shall the righteous hold on his way,
And he that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger.
10 But as for you all, come on now again;
[c]And I shall not find a wise man among you.
11 My days are past, my purposes are broken off,
Even the [d]thoughts of my heart.
12 They change the night into day:
The light, say they, is near [e]unto the darkness.
13 If I [f]look for Sheol as my house;
If I have spread my couch in the darkness;
14 If I have said to [g]corruption, Thou art my father;
To the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister;
15 Where then is my hope?
And as for my hope, who shall see it?
16 It shall go down to the bars of Sheol,
When once there is rest in the dust.
7 Wherefore, even as the Holy Spirit saith,
[a]To-day if ye shall hear his voice,
8 Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation,
Like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness,
9 [b]Where your fathers tried me by proving me,
And saw my works forty years.
10 Wherefore I was displeased with this generation,
And said, They do always err in their heart:
But they did not know my ways;
11 [c]As I sware in my wrath,
[d]They shall not enter into my rest.
12 Take heed, brethren, lest haply there shall be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God: 13 but exhort one another day by day, so long as it is called To-day; lest any one of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin: 14 for we are become partakers [e]of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end: 15 while it is said,
[f]To-day if ye shall hear his voice,
Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.
16 For who, when they heard, did provoke? nay, did not all they that came out of Egypt by Moses? 17 And with whom was he displeased forty years? was it not with them that sinned, whose [g]bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that were disobedient? 19 And we see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief.
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