Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

² O Lord, my God, I take refuge in you;
    keep me safe from all my pursuers and deliver me,
³ lest like a lion they tear me to pieces
    and carry me off, with no one to rescue me.
⁴ O Lord, my God, if I have done this,
    if my hands are stained with guilt,
⁵ if I have repaid a friend with treachery—
    I who spared the lives of those who without cause were my enemies—^[c]
6 then let my foe pursue and overtake me;
    let him trample my life into the ground
    and leave my honor in the dust. Selah
⁷ Rise up, O Lord, in your indignation;
    rise against the fury of my enemies.
Rouse yourself for me,
    and fulfill the judgment you have decreed.
⁸ Let the peoples assemble in your presence
    as you sit above them enthroned on high.
⁹     The Lord is the judge of the nations.
Therefore, pass judgment on me, O Lord, according to my righteousness,
    according to my innocence, O Most High.
¹⁰ Put an end to the malice of the wicked
    but continue to sustain the righteous,
O God of justice,
    you who search minds and hearts.^[d]
11 God is a shield to me;
    he saves those who are upright of heart.
¹² God is a just judge,
    a God who expresses his indignation every day.
¹³ When a sinner refuses to repent,
    God sharpens his sword,
    and he bends and aims his bow.
¹⁴ He has prepared deadly weapons for him
    and made his arrows into fiery shafts.
^15 [e]Behold, he who conceives iniquity
    and is pregnant with mischief
    will give birth to lies.
¹⁶ He digs a pit and makes it deep,
    but he will fall into the trap he has made.
¹⁷ His wickedness will recoil upon his own head,
    and his violence will fall back on his own crown.
¹⁸ I will offer thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness,
and I will sing hymns of praise^[f] to the name of the Lord Most High.

⁶ Although I made your teeth
    clean of food in all your cities
and spread famine in all your villages,
    you still would not return to me, says the Lord.
⁷ I even withheld the rain from you
    when there were still three months before the harvest.
I would allow rain to fall upon one town
    but not upon another.
One field would be watered by rain,
    while another would receive none and dry up.
⁸ People from two or three towns
    would stagger to a neighboring town to drink water,
    yet their thirst remained unquenched.
Yet even then you would not return to me,
    says the Lord.
⁹ I struck you with mildew and blight,
    I laid waste your gardens and vineyards;
the locust devoured your fig trees and your olive trees,
    but still you would not return to me,
    says the Lord.
¹⁰ I sent among you a plague like that of Egypt,
    and I slaughtered your young men with the sword.
I allowed your horses to be captured;
    I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camps.
And still you would not return to me,
    says the Lord.
¹¹ I brought destruction among you
    like that which devastated Sodom and Gomorrah.
You were like a brand snatched from the fire,
    and still you would not come back to me,
    says the Lord.
¹² Therefore, O Israel,
    this is what I plan to do with you.
And because I intend to do this,
    prepare to meet your God, O Israel.

¹³ He is the one who formed the mountains
    and created the wind,
    and who reveals to men his thoughts,
who changes the dawn into darkness
    and strides upon the heights of the earth:
    the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name.

¹¹ For from the beginning
you have heard the message
that we should love one another,
¹² unlike Cain who was from the evil one
and slew his brother.
And why did he slay him?
Because his own deeds were evil
while those of his brother were righteous.
¹³ Do not be surprised, my brethren,
if the world hates you.
¹⁴ We know that we have passed
from death to life
because we love our brethren.
Whoever does not love remains in death.
¹⁵ Anyone who hates his brother
is a murderer,
and you know that no murderer
has eternal life abiding in him.
¹⁶ This is how we know what love is:
he laid down his life for us,
and we in turn must be prepared
to lay down our lives for our brethren.
¹⁷ If anyone is rich in worldly possessions
and sees a brother in need
but refuses to open his heart,
how can the love of God abide in him?