Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

ALEPH.

¹ ¶ Blessed are those who walk in the perfect way, who walk in the law of the LORD.

² Blessed are those that keep his testimonies and that seek him with their whole heart.

³ For those who do no iniquity walk in his ways.

⁴ ¶ Thou hast commanded us to keep thy precepts diligently.

⁵ O that my ways were ordered to keep thy statutes!

⁶ Then I shall not be ashamed, when I have insight unto all thy commandments.

⁷ ¶ I will praise thee with uprightness of heart when I shall have learned thy righteous judgments.

⁸ I will keep thy statutes; O do not utterly forsake me.

³⁴ Then shall the land rest for her sabbaths all the days that it lies desolate, while you are in your enemies’ land; even then shall the land rest and enjoy her sabbaths.

³⁵ All the time that it shall be desolate, it shall rest that which it did not rest in your sabbaths when ye dwelt upon it.

³⁶ And upon those that are left alive of you I will send such cowardice into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, that the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursue.

³⁷ And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursue; and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

³⁸ And ye shall perish among the Gentiles, and the land of your enemies shall eat you up.

³⁹ And those that are left of you shall pine away for their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and for the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.

⁴⁰ ¶ And they shall confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers for their trespass which they trespassed against me and that also they have walked contrary unto me,

⁴¹ and that I also have walked contrary unto them and have brought them into the land of their enemies; and then their uncircumcised hearts shall be humbled, and they shall plead because of their iniquity;

⁴² and I will remember my covenant with Jacob and likewise my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember, and I will remember the land.

⁴³ That the land shall be without them and shall rest her sabbaths, being desolate because of them; and they shall plead because of their iniquity because they despised my rights and their soul abhorred my statutes.

⁴⁴ And yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them to destroy them utterly and to break my covenant with them; for I AM their God.

⁴⁵ But I will remember them because of the old covenant, when I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the Gentiles, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.

⁴⁶ These are the statutes and rights and laws, which the LORD established between him and the sons of Israel in Mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.

⁷ ¶ Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.

⁸ Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which is the truth in him and in you, because the darkness is past, and the true light now shines.

⁹ He that says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness.

¹⁰ He that loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him.

¹¹ But he that hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he goes, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.

¹² ¶ I write unto you, little children, that your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.

¹³ I write unto you, fathers, that ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, that ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, that ye have known the Father.

¹⁴ I have written unto you, fathers, that ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, that ye are strong and the word of God abides in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.

¹⁵ Love not the world neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the charity of the Father is not in him.

¹⁶ For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

¹⁷ And the world passes away and the lust thereof, but he that does the will of God abides for ever.