Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 142

A skillful song, or a didactic or reflective poem, of David; when he was in the cave. A Prayer.

¹ I cry to the Lord with my voice; with my voice to the Lord do I make supplication.

² I pour out my complaint before Him; I tell before Him my trouble.

³ When my spirit was overwhelmed and fainted [throwing all its weight] upon me, then You knew my path. In the way where I walk they have hidden a snare for me.

⁴ Look on the right hand [the point of attack] and see; for there is no man who knows me [to appear for me]. Refuge has failed me and I have no way to flee; no man cares for my life or my welfare.

⁵ I cried to You, O Lord; I said, You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.

⁶ Attend to my loud cry, for I am brought very low; deliver me from my persecutors, for they are stronger than I.

⁷ Bring my life out of prison, that I may confess, praise, and give thanks to Your name; the righteous will surround me and crown themselves because of me, for You will deal bountifully with me.

¹⁵ For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you; your dealings will return upon your own head.^(A)

¹⁶ For as you [Edom] have drunk upon the mountain of My holiness [desecrating it in the wild revelry of the destroyers], so shall all the nations drink continually [in turn, of My wrath]; yes, they shall drink, talk foolishly, and swallow down [the full measure of punishment] and they shall be [destroyed] as though they had not been.^(B)

¹⁷ But on Mount Zion [in Jerusalem] there shall be deliverance [for those who escape], and it shall be holy; and the house of Jacob shall possess its [own former] possessions.^(C)

¹⁸ The house of Jacob shall be a fire and the house of Joseph a flame, but the house of Esau shall be stubble; they shall kindle and burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor of the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken it.^(D)

¹⁹ They of the South (the Negeb) shall possess Mount Esau, and they of the lowland the land of the Philistines; they shall possess the land of Ephraim and the fields of Samaria, and Benjamin shall possess Gilead [across the Jordan River].^(E)

²⁰ And the exiles of this host of the children of Israel who are among the Canaanites shall possess [Phoenicia] as far as Zarephath, and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad shall possess the cities of the South (the Negeb).

²¹ And deliverers shall go up on Mount Zion to rule and judge Mount Esau, and the kingdom and the kingship shall be the Lord’s.^(F)

¹⁰ Then the disciples came to Him and said, Why do You speak to them in parables?

¹¹ And He replied to them, To you it has been given to know the secrets and mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.

¹² For whoever has [spiritual knowledge], to him will more be given and he will ^[a]be furnished richly so that he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.

¹³ This is the reason that I speak to them in parables: because ^[b]having the power of seeing, they do not see; and ^[c]having the power of hearing, they do not hear, nor do they grasp and understand.

¹⁴ In them indeed is ^[d]the process of fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah, which says: You shall indeed hear and hear but never grasp and understand; and you shall indeed look and look but never see and perceive.

¹⁵ For this nation’s heart has grown gross (fat and dull), and their ears heavy and difficult of hearing, and their eyes they have tightly closed, lest they see and perceive with their eyes, and hear and comprehend the sense with their ears, and grasp and understand with their heart, and turn and I should heal them.^(A)

¹⁶ But blessed (happy, fortunate, and ^[e]to be envied) are your eyes because they do see, and your ears because they do hear.

¹⁷ Truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous men [men who were upright and in right standing with God] yearned to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.