Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Maschil of Asaph.

¹ ¶ Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

² I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter enigmas of old,

³ which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

⁴ We will not hide them from their sons, showing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD and his strength and his wonderful works that he has done.

⁵ For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their sons:

⁶ That the generation to come might know them, even the sons which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their sons

⁷ that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God but keep his commandments

³⁰ ¶ Then Joshua built an altar unto the LORD God of Israel in Mount Ebal,

³¹ as Moses, the slave of the LORD had commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones, over which no one lifted up any iron tool; and they offered burnt offerings upon it unto the LORD and sacrificed peace offerings.

³² He also wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written in the presence of the sons of Israel.

³³ And all Israel and their elders and officers and their judges stood on one side and on the other near the ark, before the priests the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD, the strangers, as well as the natural born among them, half of them over against Mount Gerizim and half of them over against Mount Ebal, as Moses, the slave of the LORD, had commanded before, that they should bless the people of Israel.

³⁴ After this he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law.

³⁵ There was not a word of all the things that Moses commanded which Joshua did not read before all the congregation of Israel with the women and the little ones and the strangers that walked among them.

¹³ ¶ And the sixth angel sounded the trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before the presence of God,

¹⁴ saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, Loose the four angels who are bound in the great river Euphrates.

¹⁵ And the four angels were loosed, who were prepared unto the hour and day and month and year, to slay the third part of men.

¹⁶ And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred million: and I heard the number of them.

¹⁷ And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and those that sat on them, having breastplates of fire and of jacinth and brimstone; and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.

¹⁸ By these three plagues was the third part of men killed, by the fire and by the smoke and by the brimstone, which issued out of their mouths.

¹⁹ For their power is in their mouth and in their tails; for their tails were like unto serpents that have heads, and with them they do hurt.

²⁰ And the rest of the men who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons and the images of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which neither can see nor hear nor walk.

²¹ And they did not repent of their murders nor of their witchcraft nor of their fornication nor of their thefts.