Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

87 A canticle of a psalm for the sons of Core: unto the end, for Maheleth, to answer understanding of Eman the Ezrahite.

² O Lord, the God of my salvation: I have cried in the day, and in the night before thee.

³ Let my prayer come in before thee: incline thy ear to my petition.

⁴ For my soul is filled with evils: and my life hath drawn nigh to hell.

⁵ I am counted among them that go down to the pit: I am become as a man without help,

⁶ Free among the dead. Like the slain sleeping in the sepulchres, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cast off from thy hand.

⁷ They have laid me in the lower pit: in the dark places, and in the shadow of death.

⁸ Thy wrath is strong over me: and all thy waves thou hast brought in upon me.

⁹ Thou hast put away my acquaintance far from me: they have set me an abomination to themselves. I was delivered up, and came not forth:

¹⁰ My eyes languished through poverty. All the day I cried to thee, O Lord: I stretched out my hands to thee.

¹¹ Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? or shall physicians raise to life, and give praise to thee?

¹² Shall any one in the sepulchre declare thy mercy: and thy truth in destruction?

¹³ Shall thy wonders be known in the dark; and thy justice in the land of forgetfulness?

¹⁴ But I, O Lord, have cried to thee: and in the morning my prayer shall prevent thee.

¹⁵ Lord, why castest thou off my prayer: why turnest thou away thy face from me?

¹⁶ I am poor, and in labours from my youth: and being exalted have been humbled and troubled.

¹⁷ Thy wrath hath come upon me: and thy terrors have troubled me.

¹⁸ They have come round about me like water all the day: they have compassed me about together.

¹⁹ Friend and neighbour thou hast put far from me: and my acquaintance, because of misery.

¹⁷ And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Sion my holy mountain: and Jerusalem shall be holy and strangers shall pass through it no more.

¹⁸ And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down sweetness, and the hills shall flow with milk: and waters shall flow through all the rivers of Juda: and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the torrent of thorns.

¹⁹ Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a wilderness destroyed: because they have done unjustly against the children of Juda, and have shed innocent blood in their land.

²⁰ And Judea shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem to generation and generation.

²⁸ But what think you? A certain man had two sons; and coming to the first, he said: Son, go work to day in my vineyard.

²⁹ And he answering, said: I will not. But afterwards, being moved with repentance, he went.

³⁰ And coming to the other, he said in like manner. And he answering, said: I go, Sir; and he went not.

³¹ Which of the two did the father's will? They say to him: The first. Jesus saith to them: Amen I say to you, that the publicans and the harlots shall go into the kingdom of God before you.

³² For John came to you in the way of justice, and you did not believe him. But the publicans and the harlots believed him: but you, seeing it, did not even afterwards repent, that you might believe him.