Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A Song of degrees. Of David.

124 If it had not been Jehovah who was for us—oh let Israel say—

² If it had not been Jehovah who was for us, when men rose up against us,

³ Then they had swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us;

⁴ Then the waters had overwhelmed us, a torrent had gone over our soul;

⁵ Then the proud waters had gone over our soul.

⁶ Blessed be Jehovah, who gave us not up a prey to their teeth!

⁷ Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we have escaped.

⁸ Our help is in the name of Jehovah, the maker of heavens and earth.

²⁹ And he charged them, and said to them, I am gathered to 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 opposite to Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought of Ephron the Hittite along with the field for a possession of a sepulchre.

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

³² The purchase of the field, and of the cave that is in it, was from the children of Heth.

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

50 And Joseph fell upon his father's face, and wept upon him, and kissed him.

² And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. And the physicians embalmed Israel.

³ And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those who are embalmed. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days.

⁴ And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spoke to the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found favour in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,

⁵ My father made me swear, saying, Behold, I die; in my grave which I have dug myself in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. And now, let me go up, I pray thee, that I may bury my father; and I will come again.

⁶ And Pharaoh said, Go up and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.

⁷ And Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the bondmen of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt,

⁸ and all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father's house; only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen.

⁹ And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen; and the camp was very great.

¹⁰ And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan; and there they lamented with a great and very grievous lamentation; and he made a mourning for his father of seven days.

¹¹ And the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning at the threshing-floor of Atad, and they said, This is a grievous mourning of the Egyptians. Therefore the name of it was called Abel-Mizraim, which is beyond the Jordan.

¹² And his sons did to him according as he had commanded them;

¹³ and his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah which Abraham had bought along with the field, for a possession of a sepulchre, of Ephron the Hittite, opposite to Mamre.

¹⁴ And, after he had buried his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brethren, and all that had gone up with him to bury his father.

¹² For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves; but these, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves with themselves, are not intelligent.

¹³ Now *we* will not boast out of measure, but according to the measure of the rule which the God of measure has apportioned to us, to reach to you also.

¹⁴ For we do not, as not reaching to you, overstretch ourselves, (for we have come to you also in the glad tidings of the Christ;)

¹⁵ not boasting out of measure in other people's labours, but having hope, your faith increasing, to be enlarged amongst you, according to our rule, yet more abundantly

¹⁶ to announce the glad tidings to that [which is] beyond you, not to be boasting in another's rule of things made ready to hand.

¹⁷ But he that boasts, let him boast in the Lord.

¹⁸ For not *he* that commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends.