Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A Song of degrees of David.

¹ ¶ If the LORD had not been for us, now may Israel say,

² If the LORD had not been for us, when men rose up against us,

³ then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their wrath was kindled against us;

⁴ then the waters would have overwhelmed us; the flood would have gone over our soul;

⁵ then the proud waters would have gone over our soul.

⁶ ¶ Blessed be the LORD, who did not give us as a prey to their teeth.

⁷ Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; the snare has broken, and we are escaped.

⁸ Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made the heaven and the earth.

49 ¶ And Jacob called unto his sons and said, Gather yourselves together that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.

² Gather yourselves together and hear, ye sons of Jacob, and hearken unto Israel your father.

³ Reuben, thou art my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, principal in dignity, and the principal in power.

⁴ Unstable as water, thou shalt not be principal because thou didst go up to thy father’s bed; then thou became defiled, going up to my couch.

⁵ ¶ Simeon and Levi are brethren; instruments of injustice are their weapons.

⁶ Let my soul not enter into their secret; nor let my honour join their assembly; for in their anger they slew a man, and in their own will they dug down a wall.

⁷ Cursed be their anger, which is strong, and their wrath, which is hard; I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel.

⁸ ¶ Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise; thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s sons shall bow down before thee.

⁹ Judah is a lion’s whelp; from the prey, my son, thou art gone up; he stooped down, he couched as a lion and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up?

¹⁰ The sceptre shall not be taken from Judah, nor the lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be.

¹¹ Binding his foal unto the vine and his ass’s colt unto the choice roots; he washed his garments in wine and his covering in the blood of grapes;

¹² His eyes red with wine, and his teeth white with milk.

¹³ ¶ Zebulun shall dwell at the port of the sea; and he shall be for a port of ships; and his border shall be unto Zidon.

¹⁴ Issachar is a strong ass couching down between two burdens;

¹⁵ and he saw that rest was good and the land that it was pleasant and bowed his shoulder to bear and became a servant unto tribute.

¹⁶ Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.

¹⁷ Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that bites the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.

¹⁸ I have waited for thy saving health, O LORD.

¹⁹ Gad, an army shall invade him, but he shall invade at the last.

²⁰ Out of Asher his bread shall be fat, and he shall yield delight unto the king.

²¹ Naphtali is a hind let loose, who shall give forth a good word.

²² ¶ Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a fountain, whose daughters run over the wall.

²³ The arches have sorely grieved him and shot at him and hated him;

²⁴ but his bow abode in strength, and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the Mighty one of Jacob; from there did the stone of Israel shepherd,

²⁵ by the God of thy father, who shall help thee, and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of the heavens above, with blessings of the deep that lies under, with blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

²⁶ The blessings of thy father were greater than the blessings of my progenitors; unto the borders of the eternal hills they shall be upon the head of Joseph and on the crown of the Nazarite of his brethren.

²⁷ Benjamin, ravening wolf: in the morning he shall devour the prey, and in the evening he shall divide the spoil.

²⁸ ¶ All these were the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father spoke unto them and blessed them; each one according to his blessing he blessed them.

²⁹ And he charged them and said unto them, I am to be gathered unto my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron, the Hittite,

³⁰ in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field of Ephron, the Hittite for a possession of a buryingplace.

³¹ There they buried Abraham and Sarah, his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah, his wife; and there I buried Leah.

³² The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the sons of Heth.

³³ And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed and expired and was gathered unto his people.

6 ¶ Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go unto judgment before the unjust, and not before the saints?

² Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

³ Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more the things that pertain to this life?

⁴ If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set as judges the most humble who are in the congregation. {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones}

⁵ I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brothers?

⁶ But brother goes to judgment against brother, and that before the unbelievers.

⁷ Now therefore there is certainly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather suffer the wrong? why do ye not rather be defrauded?

⁸ But ye do wrong and defraud and do this to your brothers.

⁹ ¶ Know ye not that the unjust shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor homosexuals

¹⁰ nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards nor revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God.

¹¹ And such were some of you, but now ye are washed, but now ye are sanctified, but now ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and in the Spirit of our God.