Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

78 A psalm for Asaph. O God, the heathens are come into thy inheritance, they have defiled thy holy temple: they have made Jerusalem as a place to keep fruit.

² They have given the dead bodies of thy servants to be meat for the fowls of the air: the flesh of thy saints for the beasts of the earth.

³ They have poured out their blood as water, round about Jerusalem and there was none to bury them.

⁴ We are become a reproach to our neighbours: a scorn and derision to them that are round about us.

¹² And render to our neighbours sevenfold in their bosom: the reproach wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord.

¹³ But we thy people, and the sheep of thy pasture, will give thanks to thee for ever. We will shew forth thy praise, unto generation and generation.

¹⁷ Thus saith the Lord thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord thy God that teach thee profitable things, that govern thee in the way that thou walkest.

¹⁸ O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments: thy peace had been as a river, and thy justice as the waves of the sea,

¹⁹ And thy seed had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the gravel thereof: his name should not have perished, nor have been destroyed from before my face.

²⁰ Come forth out of Babylon, flee ye from the Chaldeans, declare it with the voice of joy: make this to be heard, and speak it out even to the ends of the earth. Say: The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob.

²¹ They thirsted not in the desert, when he led them out: he brought forth water out of the rock for them, and he clove the rock, and the waters gushed out.

¹¹ Detract not one another, my brethren. He that detracteth his brother, or he that judgeth his brother, detracteth the law, and judgeth the law. But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge.

¹² There is one lawgiver, and judge, that is able to destroy and to deliver.

¹³ But who art thou that judgest thy neighbour? Behold, now you that say: To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and there we will spend a year, and will traffic, and make our gain.

¹⁴ Whereas you know not what shall be on the morrow.

¹⁵ For what is your life? It is a vapour which appeareth for a little while, and afterwards shall vanish away. For that you should say: If the Lord will, and if we shall live, we will do this or that.

¹⁶ But now you rejoice in your arrogancies. All such rejoicing is wicked.