Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

¹³ For thou hast possessed my reins; thou didst cover me in my mother's womb.

¹⁴ I will praise thee, for I am fearfully, wonderfully made. Marvellous are thy works; and [that] my soul knoweth right well.

¹⁵ My bones were not hidden from thee when I was made in secret, curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth.

¹⁶ Thine eyes did see my unformed substance, and in thy book all [my members] were written; [during many] days were they fashioned, when [as yet] there was none of them.

¹⁷ But how precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

¹⁸ [If] I would count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I awake, I am still with thee.

³ And Jacob sent messengers before his face to Esau his brother, into the land of Seir, the fields of Edom.

⁴ And he commanded them, saying, Thus shall ye speak to my lord, to Esau: Thy servant Jacob speaks thus—With Laban have I sojourned and tarried until now;

⁵ and I have oxen, and asses, sheep, and bondmen, and bondwomen; and I have sent to tell my lord, that I may find favour in thine eyes.

⁶ And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying, We came to thy brother, to Esau; and he also is coming to meet thee, and four hundred men with him.

⁷ Then Jacob was greatly afraid, and was distressed; and he divided the people that were with him, and the sheep and the cattle and the camels, into two troops.

⁸ And he said, If Esau come to the one troop and smite it, then the other troop which is left shall escape.

⁹ And Jacob said, God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, Jehovah, who saidst unto me: Return into thy country and to thy kindred, and I will do thee good,

¹⁰ —I am too small for all the loving-kindness and all the faithfulness that thou hast shewn unto thy servant; for with my staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become two troops.

¹¹ Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and smite me, [and] the mother with the children.

¹² And thou saidst, I will certainly deal well with thee, and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.

¹³ And he lodged there that night; and took of what came to his hand a gift for Esau his brother—

¹⁴ two hundred she-goats, and twenty he-goats; two hundred ewes, and twenty rams;

¹⁵ thirty milch camels with their colts; forty kine, and ten bulls; twenty she-asses, and ten young asses.

¹⁶ And he delivered [them] into the hand of his servants, every drove by itself; and he said to his servants, Go on before me, and put a space between drove and drove.

¹⁷ And he commanded the foremost, saying, When Esau my brother meets thee, and asks thee, saying, Whose art thou, and where goest thou, and whose are these before thee?

¹⁸ —then thou shalt say, Thy servant Jacob's: it is a gift sent to my lord, to Esau. And behold, he also is behind us.

¹⁹ And so commanded he the second, and the third, and all that followed the droves, saying, According to this word shall ye speak to Esau when ye find him.

²⁰ And, moreover, ye shall say, Behold, thy servant Jacob is behind us. For he said, I will propitiate him with the gift that goes before me, and afterwards I will see his face: perhaps he will accept me.

²¹ And the gift went over before him; and he himself lodged that night in the camp.

¹² Here is the endurance of the saints, who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

¹³ And I heard a voice out of the heaven saying, Write, Blessed the dead who die in [the] Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; for their works follow with them.

¹⁴ And I saw, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud one sitting like [the] Son of man, having upon his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.

¹⁵ And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Send thy sickle and reap; for the hour of reaping is come, for the harvest of the earth is dried.

¹⁶ And he that sat on the cloud put his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.

¹⁷ And another angel came out of the temple which [is] in the heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.

¹⁸ And another angel came out of the altar, having power over fire, and called with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Send thy sharp sickle, and gather the bunches of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripened.

¹⁹ And the angel put his sickle to the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast [the bunches] into the great wine-press of the fury of God;

²⁰ and the wine-press was trodden without the city, and blood went out of the wine-press to the bits of the horses for a thousand six hundred stadia.