Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
72 A psalm for Asaph. How good is God to Israel, to them that are of a right heart!
2 But my feet were almost moved; my steps had well nigh slipped.
3 Because I had a zeal on occasion of the wicked, seeing the prosperity of sinners.
4 For there is no regard to their death, nor is there strength in their stripes.
5 They are not in the labour of men: neither shall they be scourged like other men.
6 Therefore pride hath held them fast: they are covered with their iniquity and their wickedness.
7 Their iniquity hath come forth, as it were from fatness: they have passed into the affection of the heart.
8 They have thought and spoken wickedness: they have spoken iniquity on high.
9 They have set their mouth against heaven: and their tongue hath passed through the earth.
10 Therefore will my people return here and full days shall be found in them.
11 And they said: How doth God know? and is there knowledge in the most High?
12 Behold these are sinners; and yet abounding in the world they have obtained riches.
13 And I said: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent.
14 And I have been scourged all the day; and my chastisement hath been in the mornings.
15 If I said: I will speak thus; behold I should condemn the generation of thy children.
16 I studied that I might know this thing, it is a labour in my sight:
17 Until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning their last ends.
18 But indeed for deceits thou hast put it to them: when they were lifted up thou hast cast them down.
19 How are they brought to desolation? they have suddenly ceased to be: they have perished by reason of their iniquity.
20 As the dream of them that awake, O Lord; so in thy city thou shalt bring their image to nothing.
21 For my heart hath been inflamed, and my reins have been changed:
22 And I am brought to nothing, and I knew not.
23 I am become as a beast before thee: and I am always with thee.
24 Thou hast held me by my right hand; and by thy will thou hast conducted me, and with thy glory thou hast received me.
25 For what have I in heaven? and besides thee what do I desire upon earth?
26 For thee my flesh and my heart hath fainted away: thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever.
27 For behold they that go far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that are disloyal to thee.
28 But it is good for me to adhere to my God, to put my hope in the Lord God: That I may declare all thy praises, in the gates of the daughter of Sion.
24 After this Daniel went in to Arioch, to whom the king had given orders to destroy the wise men of Babylon, and he spoke thus to him: Destroy not the wise men of Babylon: bring me in before the king, and I will tell the solution to the king.
25 Then Arioch in haste brought in Daniel to the king, and said to him: I have found a man of the children of the captivity of Juda, that will resolve the question to the king.
26 The king answered, and said to Daniel, whose name was Baltassar: Thinkest thou indeed that thou canst tell me the dream that I saw, and the interpretation thereof?
27 And Daniel made answer before the king, and said: The secret that the king desireth to know, none of the wise men, or the philosophers, or the diviners, or the soothsayers can declare to the king.
28 But there is a God in heaven that revealeth mysteries, who hath shewn to thee, O king Nabuchodonosor, what is to come to pass in the latter times. Thy dream, and the visions of thy head upon thy bed, are these:
29 Thou, O king, didst begin to think in thy bed, what should come to pass hereafter: and he that revealeth mysteries shewed thee what shall come to pass.
30 To me also this secret is revealed, not by any wisdom that I have more than all men alive: but that the interpretation might be made manifest to the king, and thou mightest know the thoughts of thy mind.
31 Thou, O king, sawest, and behold there was as it were a great statue: this statue, which was great and high, tall of stature, stood before thee, and the look thereof was terrible.
32 The head of this statue was of fine gold, but the breast and the arms of silver, and the belly and the thighs of brass:
33 And the legs of iron, the feet part of iron and part of clay.
34 Thus thou sawest, till a stone was cut out of a mountain without hands: and it struck the statue upon the feet thereof that were of iron and of clay, and broke them in pieces.
35 Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of a summer's thrashingfloor, and they were carried away by the wind: and there was no place found for them: but the stone that struck the statue, became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.
36 This is the dream: we will also tell the interpretation thereof before thee, O king.
37 Thou art a king of kings: and the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, and strength, and power, and glory:
38 And all places wherein the children of men, and the beasts of the field do dwell: he hath also given the birds of the air into thy hand, and hath put all things under thy power: thou therefore art the head of gold.
39 And after thee shall rise up another kingdom, inferior to thee, of silver: and another third kingdom of brass, which shall rule over all the world.
40 And the fourth kingdom shall be as iron. As iron breaketh into pieces, and subdueth all things, so shall that break and destroy all these.
41 And whereas thou sawest the feet, and the toes, part of potter's clay, and part of iron: the kingdom shall be divided, but yet it shall take its origin from the iron, according as thou sawest the iron mixed with the miry clay.
42 And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.
43 And whereas thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay, they shall be mingled indeed together with the seed of man, but they shall not stick fast one to another, as iron cannot be mixed with clay.
44 But in the days of those kingdoms the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and his kingdom shall not be delivered up to another people, and it shall break in pieces, and shall consume all these kingdoms, and itself shall stand for ever.
45 According as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and broke in pieces, the clay, and the iron, and the brass, and the silver, and the gold, the great God hath shewn the king what shall come to pass hereafter, and the dream is true, and the interpretation thereof is faithful.
46 Then king Nabuchodonosor fell on his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer in sacrifice to him victims and incense.
47 And the king spoke to Daniel, and said: Verily your God is the God of gods, and Lord of kings, and a revealer of hidden things: seeing thou couldst discover this secret.
48 Then the king advanced Daniel to a high station, and gave him many and great gifts: and he made him governor over all the provinces of Babylon, and chief of the magistrates over all the wise men of Babylon.
49 And Daniel requested of the king, and he appointed Sidrach, Misach, and Abdenago over the works of the province of Babylon: but Daniel himself was in the king's palace.
15 See therefore, brethren, how you walk circumspectly: not as unwise,
16 But as wise: redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
17 Wherefore become not unwise, but understanding what is the will of God.
18 And be not drunk with wine, wherein is luxury; but be ye filled with the holy Spirit,
19 Speaking to yourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord;
20 Giving thanks always for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God and the Father:
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