Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

122 To thee have I lifted up my eyes, who dwellest in heaven.

² Behold as the eyes of the servants are on the hands of their masters, As the eyes of the handmaid are on the hands of her mistress: so are our eyes unto the Lord our God, until he have mercy on us.

³ Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us: for we are greatly filled with contempt.

⁴ For our soul is greatly filled: we are a reproach to the rich, and contempt to the proud.

7 So the king and Aman went in, to drink with the queen.

² And the king said to her again the second day, after he was warm with wine: What is thy petition, Esther, that it may be granted thee? and what wilt thou have done: although thou ask the half of my kingdom, thou shalt have it.

³ Then she answered: If I have found Favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please thee, give me my life for which I ask, and my people for which I request.

⁴ For we are given up, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. And would God we were sold for bondmen and bondwomen: the evil might be borne with, and I would have mourned in silence: but now we have an enemy, whose cruelty redoundeth upon the king.

⁵ And king Assuerus answered and said: Who is this, and of what power, that he should do these things?

⁶ And Esther said: It is this Aman that is our adversary and most wicked enemy. Aman hearing this was forthwith astonished, not being able to bear the countenance of the king and of the queen.

⁷ But the king being angry rose up, and went from the place of the banquet into the garden set with trees. Aman also rose up to entreat Esther the queen for his life, for he understood that evil was prepared for him by the king.

⁸ And when the king came back out of the garden set with trees, and entered into the place of the banquet, he found Aman was fallen upon the bed on which Esther lay, and he said: He will force the queen also in my presence, in my own house. The word was not yet gone out of the king's mouth, and immediately they covered his face.

⁹ And Harbona, one of the eunuchs that stood waiting on the king, said: Behold the gibbet which he hath prepared for Mardochai, who spoke for the king, standeth in Aman's house, being fifty cubits high. And the king said to him: Hang him upon it.

¹⁰ So Aman was hanged on the gibbet, which he had prepared for Mardochai: and the king's wrath ceased.

⁹ I John, your brother and your partner in tribulation, and in the kingdom, and patience in Christ Jesus, was in the island, which is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus.

¹⁰ I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,

¹¹ Saying: What thou seest, write in a book, and send to the seven churches which are in Asia, to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamus, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.

¹² And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks:

¹³ And in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, one like to the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.

¹⁴ And his head and his hairs were white, as white wool, and as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire,

¹⁵ And his feet like unto fine brass, as in a burning furnace. And his voice as the sound of many waters.

¹⁶ And he had in his right hand seven stars. And from his mouth came out a sharp two edged sword: and his face was as the sun shineth in his power.

¹⁷ And when I had seen him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying: Fear not. I am the First and the Last,

¹⁸ And alive, and was dead, and behold I am living for ever and ever, and have the keys of death and of hell.

¹⁹ Write therefore the things which thou hast seen, and which are, and which must be done hereafter.

²⁰ The mystery of the seven stars, which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches. And the seven candlesticks are the seven churches.