Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A Psalm of David.

¹ ¶ I will praise thee with my whole heart: before the gods I will sing praises unto thee.

² I will worship the temple of thy holiness and praise thy name above thy mercy and thy truth; for thou hast made thy name to be magnificent and raised up thy spoken word above all things.

³ In the day when I called, thou didst answer me and strengthen me with strength in my soul.

⁴ All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O LORD, when they hearken unto the spoken words from thy mouth.

⁵ Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the LORD: for great is the glory of the LORD.

⁶ ¶ For the LORD, who is high and lifted up, looks upon the humble, but the proud he does not know.

⁷ Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me; thou shalt stretch forth thy hand against the wrath of my enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.

⁸ The LORD will perfect that which concerns me; thy mercy, O LORD, endures for ever; forsake not the works of thine own hands.

5 ¶ And the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod.

² When the Philistines took the ark of God, they brought it into the house of Dagon and set it by Dagon.

³ And when those of Ashdod arose early in the morning, behold, Dagon had fallen upon his face to the earth before the ark of the LORD. And they took Dagon and set him in his place again.

⁴ And when they arose early on the next morning, behold, Dagon had fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD, and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him.

⁵ Therefore, neither the priests of Dagon nor any that come into Dagon’s temple tread on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod unto this day.

⁶ ¶ But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon those of Ashdod, and he destroyed them and smote them with hemorrhoids in Ashdod and within all their borders.

⁷ And when they saw this, those of Ashdod said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us, for his hand is sore upon us and upon Dagon our god.

⁸ They sent, therefore, and gathered all the cardinals of the Philistines unto themselves and said, What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And they answered, Let the ark of the God of Israel be removed unto Gath. And they removed the ark of the God of Israel there.

⁹ And it came to pass that after they had removed it, the hand of the LORD was against the city with a very great destruction. And he smote the men of that city from the smallest to the greatest, and they broke out with hemorrhoids.

¹⁰ Therefore, they sent the ark of God to Ekron. And when the ark of God came to Ekron, the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have removed the ark of the God of Israel unto us to kill me and my people.

¹¹ So they sent and gathered together all the cardinals of the Philistines and said, Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it go again to his own place, that it not kill me and my people, for there was a deadly destruction throughout all the city, and the hand of God had become very heavy there.

¹² And those that did not die were smitten with the hemorrhoids, and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

5 ¶ For we know that if the earthly house of this our habitation were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

² For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven,

³ if so be that we shall be found clothed and not naked.

⁴ For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, for we do not desire to be unclothed, but to be clothed upon with life swallowing up that which is mortal.

⁵ Now he that has made us for this same thing is God, who has likewise given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.