Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 13

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

¹ How long will You forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?

² How long must I lay up cares within me and have sorrow in my heart day after day? How long shall my enemy exalt himself over me?

³ Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; lighten the eyes [of my faith to behold Your face in the pitchlike darkness], lest I sleep the sleep of death,

⁴ Lest my enemy say, I have prevailed over him, and those that trouble me rejoice when I am shaken.

⁵ But I have trusted, leaned on, and been confident in Your mercy and loving-kindness; my heart shall rejoice and be in high spirits in Your salvation.

⁶ I will sing to the Lord, because He has dealt bountifully with me.

¹⁸ Who is a God like You, Who forgives iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retains not His anger forever, because He delights in mercy and loving-kindness.

¹⁹ He will again have compassion on us; He will subdue and tread underfoot our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.^(A)

²⁰ You will show Your faithfulness and perform the sure promise to Jacob and loving-kindness and mercy to Abraham, as You have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.^(B)

² Notice, it is I, Paul, who tells you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no profit (advantage, avail) to you [^[a]for if you distrust Him, you can gain nothing from Him].

³ I once more protest and testify to every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation and bound to practice the whole of the Law and its ordinances.

⁴ If you seek to be justified and declared righteous and to be given a right standing with God through the Law, you are brought to nothing and so separated (severed) from Christ. You have fallen away from grace (from God’s gracious favor and unmerited blessing).

⁵ For we, [not relying on the Law but] through the [Holy] Spirit’s [help], by faith anticipate and wait for the blessing and good for which our righteousness and right standing with God [our ^[b]conformity to His will in purpose, thought, and action, causes us] to hope.

⁶ For [if we are] in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith activated and energized and expressed and working through love.