Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

To the Overcomer upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.

¹ ¶ My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my cry?

² O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

³ But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest in the midst of the praises of Israel.

⁴ Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.

⁵ They cried unto thee and were delivered: they trusted in thee and were not confounded.

⁶ But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men and despised of the people.

⁷ All those that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,

⁸ Turn him over to the LORD, let him deliver him, let him save him, seeing he delighted in him.

⁹ But thou art he that took me out of the womb; thou hast made me wait upon thee since I was upon my mother’s breasts.

¹⁰ I was cast upon thee from the womb; thou art my God from my mother’s belly.

¹¹ ¶ Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is no one to help.

¹² Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round about.

¹³ They opened their mouth upon me as a ravening and a roaring lion.

¹⁴ I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

¹⁵ My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

17 ¶ My breath is corrupt, my days are cut off, and the grave is ready for me.

² Now there are only mockers with me, upon whose bitterness my eye continues to gaze.

³ Put up now, give me surety with thee; who is he that will strike hands with me?

⁴ For with these, thou hast hid their heart from understanding; therefore, thou shalt not exalt them.

⁵ He that speaks flattery to his neighbour, even the eyes of his sons shall fail.

⁶ He has made me a byword of the peoples; and before them I have been as a tambourine.

⁷ My eyes are dim by reason of sorrow, and all my thoughts are as a shadow.

⁸ Upright men shall be astonied at this, and the innocent shall stir up himself against the hypocrite.

⁹ The righteous shall hold on to his way, and he that has clean hands shall be stronger and stronger.

¹⁰ ¶ But return all of you, and come now; for I shall not find one that is wise among you.

¹¹ My days are past, my thoughts were broken off, even the purposes of my heart.

¹² They changed the night into day; the light is short because of the darkness.

¹³ If I wait, Sheol is my house; I have made my bed in the darkness.

¹⁴ I have said to the pit, Thou art my father; to the worms, my mother, and my sister.

¹⁵ And where shall my hope be now? As for my hope, who shall see it?

¹⁶ They shall go down to the bars of Sheol, and together they shall rest in the dust.

⁷ ¶ Therefore, as the Holy Spirit saith, Today if ye will hear his voice,

⁸ harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:

⁹ Where your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.

¹⁰ Therefore, I was indignant with that generation and said, They do always err from their heart, and they have not known my ways.

¹¹ So I swore in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.

¹² Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unfaithfulness, to depart from the living God.

¹³ But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

¹⁴ For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end;

¹⁵ while it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.

¹⁶ For some of those that came out of Egypt with Moses, when they had heard, did provoke; howbeit not all.

¹⁷ But with whom was he indignant forty years? Was it not with those that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness?

¹⁸ And to whom he swore that they should not enter into his rest, but to those that disobeyed?

¹⁹ So we see that they could not enter in because of their unbelief.