Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A Song of degrees.

¹ ¶ Those that trust in the LORD are as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed but abides for ever.

² As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about his people from now on even for ever.

³ For the rod of wickedness shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous because the righteous shall not put forth their hands unto iniquity.

⁴ ¶ Do good, O LORD, unto those that are good and to those that are upright in their hearts.

⁵ As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the LORD shall take them away with the workers of iniquity; and peace shall be upon Israel.

1 ¶ The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel;

² to know wisdom and chastening; to understand prudent words;

³ to receive the chastening of prudence, justice, judgment, and equity;

⁴ to give prudence to the simple, and to the young men knowledge and council.

⁵ If the wise will hear them, doctrine shall increase, and the man of understanding shall acquire wise counsel:

⁶ To understand a parable and the interpretation; the words of the wise and their enigmas.

⁷ ¶ The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and chastening.

⁸ My son, hearken unto the chastening of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:

⁹ For they shall be an increase of grace unto thy head and protection about thy neck.

¹⁰ ¶ My son, if sinners entice thee, do not consent.

¹¹ If they say, Come with us, let us lay in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without cause.

¹² Let us swallow them up alive as Sheol and whole as those that go down into the pit;

¹³ We shall find all kinds of riches, we shall fill our houses with spoil.

¹⁴ Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:

¹⁵ My son, do not walk in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:

¹⁶ For their feet shall run to evil and make haste to shed blood.

¹⁷ Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.

¹⁸ And they lay in wait for their own blood; they ambush their own souls.

¹⁹ So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain which takes away the life of those who possess it.

2 ¶ Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest; for in that which thou dost judge another, thou dost condemn thyself; for thou that judgest others doest the same things.

² For we are sure that the judgment of God is according to the truth against those who do such things.

³ And dost thou think this, O man, that judgest those who do such things and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?

⁴ Or dost thou despise the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering, ignoring that the goodness of God leads thee to repentance?

⁵ But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasures up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,

⁶ who will render to everyone according to his deeds:

⁷ to those who persevered in well doing, glory and honour and incorruption, to those who seek eternal life;

⁸ but unto those that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but are persuaded by unrighteousness, indignation and wrath.

⁹ Tribulation and anguish shall be upon every human soul that does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek;

¹⁰ but glory, honour, and peace to everyone that works good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

¹¹ For there is no respect of persons with God.