Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

68 Unto the end, for them that shall be changed; for David.

² SAVE me, O God: for the waters are come in even unto my soul.

³ I stick fast in the mire of the deep: and there is no sure standing. I am come into the depth of the sea: and a tempest hath overwhelmed me.

⁴ I have laboured with crying; my jaws are become hoarse: my eyes have failed, whilst I hope in my God.

⁵ They are multiplied above the hairs of my head, who hate me without cause. My enemies are grown strong who have wrongfully persecuted me: then did I pay that which I took not away.

⁶ O God, thou knowest my foolishness; and my offences are not hidden from thee:

⁷ Let not them be ashamed for me, who look for thee, O Lord, the Lord of hosts. Let them not be confounded on my account, who seek thee, O God of Israel.

⁸ Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face.

⁹ I am become a stranger to my brethren, and an alien to the sons of my mother.

¹⁰ For the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up: and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.

¹⁹ Attend to my soul, and deliver it: save me because of my enemies.

²⁰ Thou knowest my reproach, and my confusion, and my shame.

⁹ They have violently robbed the fatherless, and stripped the poor common people.

¹⁰ From the naked and them that go without clothing, and from the hungry they have taken away the ears of corn.

¹¹ They have taken their rest at noon among the stores of them, who after having trodden the winepresses suffer thirst.

¹² Out of the cities they have made men to groan, and the soul of the wounded hath cried out, and God doth not suffer it to pass unrevenged.

¹³ They have been rebellious to the light, they have not known his ways, neither have they returned by his paths.

¹⁴ The murderer riseth at the very break of day, he killeth the needy, and the poor man: but in the night he will be as a thief.

¹⁵ The eye of the adulterer observeth darkness, saying: No eye shall see me: and he will cover his face.

¹⁶ He diggeth through houses in the dark, as in the day they had appointed for themselves, and they have not known the light.

¹⁷ If the morning suddenly appear, it is to them the shadow of death: and they walk in darkness as if it were in light.

¹⁸ He is light upon the face of the water: cursed be his portion on the earth, let him not walk by the way of the vineyards.

¹⁹ Let him pass from the snow waters to excessive heat, and his sin even to hell.

²⁰ Let mercy forget him: may worms be his sweetness: let him be remembered no more, but be broken in pieces as an unfruitful tree.

²¹ For he hath fed the barren that beareth not, and to the widow he hath done no good.

²² He hath pulled down the strong by his might: and when he standeth up, he shall not trust to his life.

²³ God hath given him place for penance, and he abuseth it unto pride: but his eyes are upon his ways.

²⁴ They are lifted up for a little while and shall not stand, and shall be brought down as all things, and shall be taken away, and as the tops of the ears of corn they shall be broken.

²⁵ And if it be not so, who can convince me that I have lied, and set my words before God?

¹¹ But when Cephas was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.

¹² For before that some came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them who were of the circumcision.

¹³ And to his dissimulation the rest of the Jews consented, so that Barnabas also was led by them into that dissimulation.

¹⁴ But when I saw that they walked not uprightly unto the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all: If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as the Jews do, how dost thou compel the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?