Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

1 How solitary sits the city that was full of people! She is as a widow. She who was great among the nations, princess among the provinces, has been made a forced laborer!

² She weeps continually in the night, and her tears run down her cheeks. Among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her. All her friends have dealt unfaithfully with her and are her enemies.

³ Judah has been carried away captive because of affliction and because of great servitude. She dwells among the heathen and finds no rest. All her persecutors overtook her in the midst of her distress.

⁴ The ways of Zion lament, because no one comes to the solemn feasts; all her gates are desolate. Her priests sigh, her virgins are afflicted, and she is in heaviness.

⁵ Her adversaries are her masters; her enemies prosper. For the LORD has afflicted her for the multitude of her transgressions. Her children have gone into captivity before the enemy,

⁶ and all her beauty has departed from the daughter of Zion. Her princes have become like deer that find no pasture; and they have gone without strength before the pursuer.

¹⁹ Remember my affliction and my mourning, the wormwood and the bitterness.

²⁰ My soul has remembered them and is humbled in me.

²¹ I consider this in my heart; therefore, I have hope.

²² It is because of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed. His compassions do not fail.

²³ They are renewed every morning. Great is Your faithfulness!

²⁴ “The LORD is my portion;” says my soul, “therefore, I will hope in Him!”

²⁵ The LORD is good to those who trust in Him, to the soul that seeks Him.

²⁶ It is good to wait, watchfully yet silently, for the salvation of the LORD.

137 We sat by the rivers of Babel; and there we wept when we remembered Zion.

² We hung our harps upon the willows, in the midst thereof.

³ Those who led us into captivity required songs and glee from us when we had hung up our harps, saying, “Sing us the songs of Zion!”

⁴ How shall we sing a song of the LORD in a strange land?

⁵ If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget,

⁶ if I do not remember you. Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not prefer Jerusalem to my chief joy.

⁷ Remember the children of Edom, O LORD, on the day of Jerusalem, who said, “Raze it! Raze it to the foundation thereof!”

⁸ O Daughter of Babel, worthy to be destroyed. Blessed is he who rewards you as you have served us.

⁹ Blessed is he who takes and dashes your children against the stones. A Psalm of David

1 Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,

² To Timothy, my beloved son: Grace, mercy and peace, from God the Father, and from Jesus Christ our Lord.

³ I thank God, Whom I serve with pure conscience (as my forefathers did), remembering you in my prayers night and day, without ceasing;

⁴ desiring to see you, mindful of your tears, so that I may be filled with joy

⁵ when I call to remembrance the sincere faith that is in you (which dwelt first in your grandmother, Lois, and in your mother, Eunice, and assuredly dwells in you also).

⁶ Therefore, I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you by the laying on of my hands.

⁷ For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of self-control.

⁸ Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me (His prisoner). But share in the afflictions of the Gospel according to the power of God.

⁹ He has saved us and called us with a holy calling - not according to our works - but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us through Christ Jesus before the world was;

¹⁰ but is now revealed by the appearing of our Savior, Jesus Christ, Who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel,

¹¹ for which I am appointed a preacher and Apostle and a teacher of the Gentiles.

¹² For this reason I also suffer these things. But I am not ashamed. For I know Whom I have believed. And I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him until that Day.

¹³ Keep the true pattern of the wholesome words which you have heard from me in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus.

¹⁴ Keep that worthy thing which was committed to you through the Holy Ghost, Who dwells in us.

⁵ And the Apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”

⁶ And the Lord said, “If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Pluck yourself up by the roots and plant yourself in the sea’, and it would obey you.

⁷ “Also, who of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, would say to him when he comes from the field, ‘Come at once, and sit down to eat?’

⁸ “Would you not rather say to him, ‘Prepare my supper and dress yourself. And serve me until I have eaten and drunk. And you eat and drink afterward?’

⁹ “Does he thank that servant because he did that which was commanded? I think not.

¹⁰ “So likewise you, when you have done all those things which are commanded of you, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done that which was our duty to do.’”