Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A Psalm of David.

¹ ¶ Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent unto me lest, if thou be silent unto me, I become like those that go down into the grave.

² Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward the oracle of thy holiness.

³ Do not catch me away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, who speak peace to their neighbours, but evil is in their hearts.

⁴ Give them according to their deeds and according to the wickedness of their endeavours: give them after the work of their hands; render unto them their desert.

⁵ Because they do not regard the works of the LORD nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them and not build them up.

⁶ ¶ Blessed be the LORD because he has heard the voice of my supplications.

⁷ The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped; therefore my heart greatly rejoices; and with my song I will praise him.

⁸ The LORD is the strength of his people, and he is the saving strength of his anointed.

⁹ Save thy people and bless thine inheritance; feed them also and lift them up for ever.

²⁹ And Reuben returned unto the cistern; and, behold, Joseph was not inside, and he rent his clothes.

³⁰ And he returned unto his brethren and said, The young man is not; and I, where shall I go?

³¹ ¶ Then they took Joseph’s coat and killed a kid of the goats and dipped the coat in the blood;

³² and they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father and said, We have found this, recognize now whether it is thy son’s coat or not.

³³ And he knew it and said, It is my son’s coat; an evil beast has devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.

³⁴ Then Jacob rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his loins and mourned for his son many days.

³⁵ And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted, and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him.

³⁶ And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s and captain of the guard.

⁴ For if God did not forgive the angels that sinned, but cast them down into the deepest abyss {Gr. Tartarus} and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

⁵ and if he did not forgive the old world, but kept Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven other persons, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;

⁶ and if he condemned by destruction the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha, turning them into ashes, making them an example unto those that after should live without fear and reverence of God;

⁷ ¶ and delivered just Lot, who was persecuted by those abominable people because of their nefarious conversation;

⁸ (for that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, afflicted his righteous soul from day to day with the deeds of those unjust people);

⁹ the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished;

¹⁰ ¶ and chiefly those that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise dominion; presumptuous, arrogant, they are not afraid to speak evil of the higher powers;