Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David.

¹ ¶ O LORD, thou hast searched me and known me.

² Thou knowest my sitting down and my rising up, thou dost understand my thoughts from afar.

³ Thou hast girded my walk and my rest, and hast prepared all my ways.

⁴ For the word is not even upon my tongue, and, behold, O LORD, thou dost know it altogether.

⁵ Thou hast formed my face and my insides and laid thine hand upon me.

⁶ Thy knowledge is wonderful beyond my ability to comprehend; it is high, I cannot understand it.

¹³ For thou hast possessed my kidneys: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴ I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvellous are thy works, and that, my soul knows right well.

¹⁵ My body was not hid from thee, even though I was made in secret and brought together in the lowest parts of the earth.

¹⁶ Thine eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which were then formed, without lacking one of them.

¹⁷ ¶ Therefore, how precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!

¹⁸ If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with thee.

¹⁶ Nevertheless, the LORD raised up judges who delivered them out of the hand of those that spoiled them.

¹⁷ And yet they would not hearken unto their judges, but they fornicated after other gods and bowed themselves unto them; they turned quickly out of the way which their fathers had walked hearing the commandments of the LORD; but they did not do so.

¹⁸ And when the LORD raised them up judges, then the LORD was with the judge and delivered them out of the hand of their enemies all the days of that judge; for the LORD repented because of their groanings by reason of those that oppressed them and afflicted them.

¹⁹ But when the judge was dead, then they would return, and corrupt themselves more than their fathers in following other gods to serve them and to bow down unto them; they did not diminish from their own doings nor from their stubborn way.

²⁰ And the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he said, Because these people transgress my covenant which I commanded their fathers and do not hearken unto my voice;

²¹ neither will I drive out any longer from before them any of these Gentiles which Joshua left when he died,

²² that through them I may prove Israel, whether they will keep the way of the LORD by walking therein as their fathers kept it, or not.

²³ Therefore, the LORD left those Gentiles, without driving them out hastily; neither did he deliver them into the hand of Joshua.

¹⁶ Then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand said, Men of Israel and ye that fear God hearken.

¹⁷ The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers and exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with a high arm he brought them out of it.

¹⁸ And for the time of about forty years, he suffered their manners in the wilderness.

¹⁹ And when he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he divided their land to them by lot.

²⁰ And after that he gave unto them judges about the space of four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet.

²¹ And afterward they asked for a king, and God gave unto them Saul the son of Cis, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years.

²² And when he had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king, to whom also he gave testimony, saying, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who shall fulfil all my will.

²³ Of this man’s seed has God according to his promise raised up Jesus as Saviour unto Israel:

²⁴ John, having first proclaimed before his coming, the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.

²⁵ And as John fulfilled his course, he said, Whom think ye that I am? I am not he. But, behold, there comes one after me, whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose.