Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

5 Unto the end, for her that obtaineth the inheritance. A psalm of David.

² Give ear, O Lord, to my words, understand my cry.

³ Hearken to the voice of my prayer, O my King and my God.

⁴ For to thee will I pray: O Lord, in the morning thou shalt hear my voice.

⁵ In the morning I will stand before thee, and will see: because thou art not a God that willest iniquity.

⁶ Neither shall the wicked dwell near thee: nor shall the unjust abide before thy eyes.

⁷ Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity: Thou wilt destroy all that speak a lie. The bloody and the deceitful man the Lord will abhor.

⁸ But as for me in the multitude of thy mercy, I will come into thy house; I will worship towards thy holy temple, in thy fear.

²³ But the servants of the king of Syria said to him: Their gods are gods of the hills, therefore they have overcome us: but it is better that we should fight against them in the plains, and we shall overcome them.

²⁴ Do thou therefore this thing: Remove all the kings from thy army, and put captains in their stead:

²⁵ And make up the number of soldiers that have been slain of thine, and horses according to the former horses, and chariots according to the chariots which thou hadst before: and we will fight against them in the plains, and thou shalt see that we shall overcome them. He believed their counsel and did so.

²⁶ Wherefore at the return of the year, Benadad mustered the Syrians, ancient up to Aphec, to fight against Israel.

²⁷ And the children of Israel were mustered, and taking victuals went out on the other side, and camped over against them, like two little flocks of goats: but the Syrians filled the land.

²⁸ (And a man of God coming, said to the king of Israel: Thus saith the Lord: Because the Syrians have said: The Lord is God of the hills, but is not God of the valleys: I will deliver all this great multitude into thy hand, and you shall know that I am the Lord.)

²⁹ And both sides set their armies in array one against the other seven days, and on the seventh day the battle was fought: and the children of Israel slew of the Syrians a hundred thousand footmen in one day.

³⁰ And they that remained fled to Aphec, into the city: and the wall fell upon seven and twenty thousand men, that were left. And Benadad fleeing went into the city, into a chamber that was within a chamber.

³¹ And his servants said to him: Behold, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful: so let us put sackcloth on our loins, and ropes on our heads, and go out to the king of Israel: perhaps he will save our lives.

³² So they girded sackcloth on their loins, and put ropes on their heads, and came to the king of Israel, and said to him: Thy servant Benadad saith: I beseech thee let me have my life. And he said: If he be yet alive he is my brother.

³³ The men took this for a sign: and in haste caught the word out of his mouth, and said: Thy brother Benadad. And he said to them: Go, and bring him to me. Then Benadad came out to him, and he lifted him up into his chariot.

³⁴ And he said to him: The cities which my father took from thy father, I will restore: and do thou make thee streets in Damascus, as my father made in Samaria, and having made a league I will depart from thee. So he made a league with him, and let him go.

11 I say then: Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.

² God hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew. Know you not what the scripture saith of Elias; how he calleth on God against Israel?

³ Lord, they have slain thy prophets, they have dug down thy altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life.

⁴ But what saith the divine answer to him? I have left me seven thousand men, that have not bowed their knees to Baal.

⁵ Even so then at this present time also, there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace.

⁶ And if by grace, it is not now by works: otherwise grace is no more grace.

⁷ What then? That which Israel sought, he hath not obtained: but the election hath obtained it; and the rest have been blinded.

⁸ As it is written: God hath given them the spirit of insensibility; eyes that they should not see; and ears that they should not hear, until this present day.

⁹ And David saith: Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling block, and a recompense unto them.

¹⁰ Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see: and bow down their back always.