Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

71 A psalm on Solomon.

² Give to the king thy judgment, O God: and to the king's son thy justice: To judge thy people with justice, and thy poor with judgment.

³ Let the mountains receive peace for the people: and the hills justice.

⁴ He shall judge the poor of the people, and he shall save the children of the poor: and he shall humble the oppressor.

⁵ And he shall continue with the sun, and before the moon, throughout all generations.

⁶ He shall come down like rain upon the fleece; and as showers falling gently upon the earth.

6 Strengthen yourselves, ye sons of Benjamin, in the midst of Jerusalem, and sound the trumpet in Thecua, and set up the standard over Bethacarem: for evil is seen out of the north, and a great destruction.

² I have likened the daughter of Sion to a beautiful and delicate woman.

³ The shepherds shall come to her with their flocks: they have pitched their tents against her round about: every one shall feed them that are under his hand.

⁴ Prepare ye war against her: arise, and let us go up at midday: woe unto us, for the day is declined, for the shadows of the evening are grown longer.

⁵ Arise, and let us go up in the night, and destroy her houses.

⁶ For thus saith the Lord of hosts: Hew down her trees, cast up a trench about Jerusalem: this is the city to be visited, all oppression is in the midst of her.

⁷ As a cistern maketh its water cold, so hath she made her wickedness cold: violence and spoil shall be heard in her, infirmity and stripes are continually before me.

⁸ Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee, lest I make thee desolate, a land uninhabited.

⁹ Thus saith the Lord of hosts: They shall gather the remains of Israel, as in a vine, even to one cluster: turn back thy hand, as a grape gatherer into the basket.

¹⁰ To whom shall I speak? and to whom shall I testify, that he may hear? behold, their ears are uncircumcised, and they cannot hear: behold the word of the Lord is become unto them a reproach: and and they will not receive it.

¹¹ Therefore am I full of the fury of the Lord, I am weary with holding in: pour it out upon the child abroad, and upon the council of the young men together: for man and woman shall be taken, the ancient and he that is full of days.

¹² And their houses shall be turned over to others, with their lands and their wives together: for I will stretch for my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord.

¹³ For from the least of them even to the greatest, all are given to covetousness: and from the prophet even to the priest, all are guilty of deceit.

¹⁴ And they healed the breach of the daughter of my people disgracefully, saying: Peace, peace: and there was no peace.

¹⁵ They were confounded, because they committed abomination: yea, rather they were not confounded with confusion, and they knew not how to blush: wherefore they shall fall among them that fall: in the time of their visitation they shall fall down, saith the Lord.

¹⁶ Thus saith the Lord: Stand ye on the ways, and see and ask for the old paths which is the good way, and walk ye in it: and you shall find refreshment for your souls. And they said: we will not walk.

¹⁷ And I appointed watchmen over you, saying: Hearken ye to the sound of the trumpet. And they said: We will not hearken.

¹⁸ Therefore hear, ye nations, and know, O congregation, what great things I will do to them.

¹⁹ Hear, O earth: Behold I will bring evils upon this people, the fruits of their own thoughts: because they have not heard my words, and they have cast away my law.

³ For think diligently upon him that endured such opposition from sinners against himself; that you be not wearied, fainting in your minds.

⁴ For you have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin:

⁵ And you have forgotten the consolation, which speaketh to you, as unto children, saying: My son, neglect not the discipline of the Lord; neither be thou wearied whilst thou art rebuked by him.

⁶ For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth; and he scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

⁷ Persevere under discipline. God dealeth with you as with his sons; for what son is there, whom the father doth not correct?

⁸ But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are made partakers, then are you bastards, and not sons.

⁹ Moreover we have had fathers of our flesh, for instructors, and we reverenced them: shall we not much more obey the Father of spirits, and live?

¹⁰ And they indeed for a few days, according to their own pleasure, instructed us: but he, for our profit, that we might receive his sanctification.

¹¹ Now all chastisement for the present indeed seemeth not to bring with it joy, but sorrow: but afterwards it will yield, to them that are exercised by it, the most peaceable fruit of justice.

¹² Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,

¹³ And make straight steps with your feet: that no one, halting, may go out of the way; but rather be healed.

¹⁴ Follow peace with all men, and holiness: without which no man shall see God.

¹⁵ Looking diligently, lest any man be wanting to the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up do hinder, and by it many be defiled.

¹⁶ Lest there be any fornicator, or profane person, as Esau; who for one mess, sold his first birthright.

¹⁷ For know ye that afterwards, when he desired to inherit the benediction, he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, although with tears he had sought it.