Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

[A Psalm] of David.

28 Unto thee, Jehovah, do I call; my rock, be not silent unto me, lest, [if] thou keep silence toward me, I become like them that go down into the pit.

² Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward the oracle of thy holiness.

³ Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, who speak peace to their neighbours, and mischief is in their heart.

⁴ Give them according to their doing, and according to the wickedness of their deeds; give them after the work of their hands, render to them their desert.

⁵ For they regard not the deeds of Jehovah, nor the work of his hands: he will destroy them, and not build them up.

⁶ Blessed be Jehovah, for he hath heard the voice of my supplications.

⁷ Jehovah is my strength and my shield; my heart confided in him, and I was helped: therefore my heart exulteth, and with my song will I praise him.

⁸ Jehovah is their strength; and he is the stronghold of salvation to his anointed one.

⁹ Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance; and feed them, and lift them up for ever.

²⁹ And Reuben returned to the pit, and behold, Joseph [was] not in the pit; and he rent his garments,

³⁰ and returned to his brethren, and said, The child is not; and I, where shall I go?

³¹ And they took Joseph's vest, and slaughtered a buck of the goats, and dipped the vest in the blood;

³² and they sent the vest of many colours and had it carried to their father, and said, This have we found: discern now whether it is thy son's vest or not.

³³ And he discerned it, and said, [It is] my son's vest! an evil beast has devoured him: Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces!

³⁴ And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned for his son many days.

³⁵ And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted, and said, For I will go down to my son into Sheol mourning. Thus his father wept for him.

³⁶ And the Midianites sold him into Egypt, to Potiphar, a chamberlain of Pharaoh, the captain of the life-guard.

⁴ For if God spared not [the] angels who had sinned, but having cast them down to the deepest pit of gloom has delivered them to chains of darkness [to be] kept for judgment;

⁵ and spared not [the] old world, but preserved Noe, [the] eighth, a preacher of righteousness, having brought in [the] flood upon [the] world of [the] ungodly;

⁶ and having reduced [the] cities of Sodom and Gomorrha to ashes, condemned [them] with an overthrow, setting [them as] an example to those that should [afterwards] live an ungodly life;

⁷ and saved righteous Lot, distressed with the abandoned conversation of the godless,

⁸ (for the righteous man through seeing and hearing, dwelling among them, tormented [his] righteous soul day after day with [their] lawless works,)

⁹ [the] Lord knows [how] to deliver the godly out of trial, and to keep [the] unjust to [the] day of judgment [to be] punished;

¹⁰ and specially those who walk after the flesh in [the] lust of uncleanness, and despise lordship. Bold [are they], self-willed; they do not fear speaking injuriously of dignities: