Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

77 Understanding for Asaph. Attend, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

² I will open my mouth in parables: I will utter propositions from the beginning.

¹¹ And they forgot his benefits, and his wonders that he had shewn them.

¹² Wonderful things did he do in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Tanis.

¹³ He divided the sea and brought them through: and he made the waters to stand as in a vessel.

¹⁴ And he conducted them with a cloud by day: and all the night with a light of fire.

¹⁵ He struck the rock in the wilderness: and gave them to drink, as out of the great deep.

¹⁶ He brought forth water out of the rock: and made streams run down as rivers.

¹⁷ And they added yet more sin against him: they provoked the most High to wrath in the place without water.

¹⁸ And they tempted God in their hearts, by asking meat for their desires.

¹⁹ And they spoke ill of God: they said: Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?

²⁰ Because he struck the rock, and the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can he also give bread, or provide a table for his people?

²⁹ So the king of Israel, and Josaphat king of Juda went up to Ramoth Galaad.

³⁰ And the king of Israel said to Josaphat: Take armour, and go into the battle, and put on thy own garments. But the king of Israel changed his dress, and went into the battle.

³¹ And the king of Syria had commanded the two and thirty captains of the chariots, saying: You shall not fight against any, small or great, but against the king of Israel only.

³² So when the captains of the chariots saw Josaphat, they suspected that he was the king of Israel, and making a violent assault they fought against him: and Josaphat cried out.

³³ And the captains of the chariots perceived that he was not the king of and they turned away from him.

³⁴ And a certain man bent his bow, shooting at a venture, and chanced to strike the king of Israel between the lungs and the stomach. But he said to the driver of his chariot: Turn thy hand, and carry me out of the army, for I am grievously wounded.

³⁵ And the battle was fought that day, and the king of Israel stood in his chariot against the Syrians, and he died in the evening: and the blood ran out of the wound into the midst of the chariot.

³⁶ And the herald proclaimed through all the army before the sun set, saying: Let every man return to his own city, and to his own country.

³⁷ And the king died, and was carried into Samaria: and they buried the king in Samaria.

³⁸ And they washed his chariot in the pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked up his blood, and they washed the reins, according to the word of the Lord which he had spoken.

³⁹ But the rest of the acts of Achab, and all that he did, and the house of ivory that he made, and all the cities that he built, are they not written in the book of the words of the days of the kings of Israel?

⁴⁰ So Achab slept with his fathers, and Ochozias his son reigned in his stead.

⁵¹ And Josaphat slept with his fathers. and was buried with them in the city of David his father: and Joram his son reigned in his stead.

⁵² And Ochozias the son of Achab began to reign over Israel in Samaria, in the seventeenth year of Josaphat king of Juda, and he reigned over Israel two years,

⁵³ And he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of his father and his mother, and in the way of Jeroboam the son of Nabat, who made Israel to sin.

⁵ Try your own selves if you be in the faith; prove ye yourselves. Know you not your own selves, that Christ Jesus is in you, unless perhaps you be reprobates?

⁶ But I trust that you shall know that we are not reprobates.

⁷ Now we pray God, that you may do no evil, not that we may appear approved, but that you may do that which is good, and that we may be as reprobates.

⁸ For we can do nothing against the truth; but for the truth.

⁹ For we rejoice that we are weak, and you are strong. This also we pray for, your perfection.

¹⁰ Therefore I write these things, being absent, that, being present, I may not deal more severely, according to the power which the Lord hath given me unto edification, and not unto destruction.