Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

1 How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! How she has become as a widow! She that was great among the nations and princess among the provinces, how she has become tributary!

² She weepeth sorely in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks; among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her. All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they have become her enemies.

³ Judah has gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude. She dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest; all her persecutors overtook her in her straits.

⁴ The highways of Zion do mourn, because none come to the solemn feasts; all her gates are desolate. Her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in bitterness.

⁵ Her adversaries are the master, her enemies prosper; for the Lord hath afflicted her. For the multitude of her transgressions, her children have gone into captivity before the enemy.

⁶ And from the daughter of Zion, all her beauty is departed; her princes have become like harts that find no pasture, and they have gone without strength before the pursuer.

¹⁹ remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall.

²⁰ My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me.

²¹ This I recall to my mind; therefore have I hope:

²² It is through the Lord’S mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.

²³ They are new every morning; great is Thy faithfulness.

²⁴ “The Lord is my portion,” saith my soul, “Therefore will I hope in Him.”

²⁵ The Lord is good unto them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeketh Him.

²⁶ It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord.

137 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.

² We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

³ For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song, and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

⁴ How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?

⁵ If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cleverness.

⁶ If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

⁷ Remember, O Lord, the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem’s fall, who said, “Raze it, raze it, even to the foundation thereof!”

⁸ O daughter of Babylon who art to be destroyed, happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.

⁹ Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.

1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,

² To Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

³ I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that I have thee in remembrance in my prayers night and day without ceasing.

⁴ I greatly desire to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy

⁵ when I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice and,I am persuaded, is in thee also.

⁶ Therefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God which is in thee through the putting on of my hands.

⁷ For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

⁸ Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner; but be thou a partaker of the afflictions of the Gospel according to the power of God,

⁹ who hath saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but in accordance with His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

¹⁰ but is now made manifest by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.

¹¹ For this I am appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles,

¹² for which cause I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed. For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that Day.

¹³ Hold fast to the form of sound words, which thou hast heard from me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.

¹⁴ That good thing which was committed unto thee, keep, by the Holy Ghost who dwelleth in us.

⁵ And the apostles said unto the Lord, “Increase our faith.”

⁶ And the Lord said, “If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, ‘Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea,’ and it should obey you.

⁷ But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by when he is come from the field, ‘Go and sit down to meat’?

⁸ But will you not rather say unto him, ‘Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself and serve me until I have eaten and drunk, and afterward thou shalt eat and drink’?

⁹ Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not!

¹⁰ So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done that which was our duty to do.’”