Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

119 [Aleph.] O the happiness of those perfect in the way, They are walking in the law of Jehovah,

² O the happiness of those keeping His testimonies, With the whole heart they seek Him.

³ Yea, they have not done iniquity, In His ways they have walked.

⁴ Thou hast commanded us Thy precepts to keep diligently,

⁵ O that my ways were prepared to keep Thy statutes,

⁶ Then I am not ashamed In my looking unto all Thy commands.

⁷ I confess Thee with uprightness of heart, In my learning the judgments of Thy righteousness.

⁸ Thy statutes I keep, leave me not utterly!

³⁴ `Then doth the land enjoy its sabbaths -- all the days of the desolation, and ye in the land of your enemies -- then doth the land rest, and hath enjoyed its sabbaths;

³⁵ all the days of the desolation it resteth that which it hath not rested in your sabbaths in your dwelling on it.

³⁶ `And those who are left of you -- I have also brought a faintness into their heart in the lands of their enemies, and the sound of a leaf driven away hath pursued them, and they have fled -- flight from a sword -- and they have fallen, and there is none pursuing.

³⁷ And they have stumbled one on another, as from the face of a sword, and there is none pursuing, and ye have no standing before your enemies,

³⁸ and ye have perished among the nations, and the land of your enemies hath consumed you.

³⁹ `And those who are left of you -- they consume away in their iniquity, in the lands of your enemies; and also in the iniquities of their fathers, with them they consume away.

⁴⁰ `And -- they have confessed their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, in their trespass which they have trespassed against Me, and also, that they have walked with Me, in opposition,

⁴¹ also I walk to them in opposition, and have brought them into the land of their enemies -- or then their uncircumcised heart is humbled, and then they accept the punishment of their iniquity, --

⁴² then I have remembered My covenant [with] Jacob, and also My covenant [with] Isaac, and also My covenant [with] Abraham I remember, and the land I remember.

⁴³ `And -- the land is left of them, and doth enjoy its sabbaths, in the desolation without them, and they accept the punishment of their iniquity, because, even because, against My judgments they have kicked, and My statutes hath their soul loathed,

⁴⁴ and also even this, in their being in the land of their enemies, I have not rejected them, nor have I loathed them, to consume them, to break My covenant with them; for I [am] Jehovah their God; --

⁴⁵ then I have remembered for them the covenant of the ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations to become their God; I [am] Jehovah.'

⁴⁶ These [are] the statutes, and the judgments, and the laws, which Jehovah hath given between Him and the sons of Israel, in mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses.

⁷ Brethren, a new command I write not to you, but an old command, that ye had from the beginning -- the old command is the word that ye heard from the beginning;

⁸ again, a new command I write to you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness doth pass away, and the true light doth now shine;

⁹ he who is saying, in the light he is, and his brother is hating, in the darkness he is till now;

¹⁰ he who is loving his brother, in the light he doth remain, and a stumbling-block in him there is not;

¹¹ and he who is hating his brother, in the darkness he is, and in the darkness he doth walk, and he hath not known whither he doth go, because the darkness did blind his eyes.

¹² I write to you, little children, because the sins have been forgiven you through his name;

¹³ I write to you, fathers, because ye have known him who [is] from the beginning; I write to you, young men, because ye have overcome the evil. I write to you, little youths, because ye have known the Father:

¹⁴ I did write to you, fathers, because ye have known him who [is] from the beginning; I did write to you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God in you doth remain, and ye have overcome the evil.

¹⁵ Love not ye the world, nor the things in the world; if any one doth love the world, the love of the Father is not in him,

¹⁶ because all that [is] in the world -- the desire of the flesh, and the desire of the eyes, and the ostentation of the life -- is not of the Father, but of the world,

¹⁷ and the world doth pass away, and the desire of it, and he who is doing the will of God, he doth remain -- to the age.