Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

86 The prayer of David. Lord, bow (down) thine ear, and hear me; for I am needy and poor.

² Keep thou my life, for I am holy; my God, make thou safe thy servant hoping in thee. (Keep thou my life safe, for I am holy; my God, save thou thy servant, who trusteth in thee.)

³ Lord, have thou mercy on me, for I cried all day (long) to thee;

⁴ make thou glad the soul of thy servant; for why, Lord, I have raised my soul to thee (for Lord, I have raised up my soul to thee).

⁵ For thou, Lord, art sweet and mild; and of much mercy to all men inwardly calling thee. (For thou, Lord, art good and forgiving; and hath great love for all who call to thee/and hath great mercy for all who cry to thee.)

⁶ Lord, perceive thou my prayer with ears; and give thou attention to the voice of my beseeching. (Lord, listen thou to my prayer; and give attention to the words of my plea.)

⁷ In the day of my tribulation I cried to thee; for thou heardest me. (In my time of trouble, I cried to thee; for thou shalt answer me.)

⁸ Lord, none among gods is like thee; and none is even to thy works. (Lord, there is no god like thee; and there be no works like thy works/and there be no works equal to thy works.)

⁹ Lord, all folks, whichever thou madest (Lord, all the nations, which thou hast made), shall come, and worship before thee; and they shall glorify thy name.

¹⁰ For thou art full great, and making marvels (For thou art very great, and doing marvellous deeds); thou art God alone.

¹¹ Lord, lead thou me forth in thy way, and I shall enter in thy truth; mine heart be glad, that it dread thy name. (Lord, lead thou me forth in thy way, and I shall walk in thy truth; let my heart be glad, that I fear thy name/that I revere thy name.)

¹² My Lord God, I shall acknowledge to thee in all mine heart; and I shall glorify thy name [into] without end. (My Lord God, I shall praise thee with all my heart; and I shall glorify thy name forever.)

¹³ For thy mercy is great on me; and thou deliveredest my soul from the lower hell. (For thy love is great towards me; and thou hast rescued my soul from the depths of Sheol, or the land of the dead/and thou hast rescued my soul from the grave itself.)

¹⁴ God, wicked men have risen upon me; and the synagogue of mighty men have sought my life; and they have not set forth thee in their sight. (God, the wicked have risen against me; and a company of mighty men have sought my life; and they have no thought of thee.)

¹⁵ And thou, Lord God, doing mercy, and merciful; patient, and of much mercy, and soothfast. (But thou, Lord, art a God who giveth love, and art merciful; yea, thou art patient, and hath great love, and art faithful.)

¹⁶ Behold on me, and have mercy on me, give thou the empire to thy servant; and make thou safe the son of thine handmaid. (Turn to me, and have mercy on me; give thou thy strength to thy servant, and save thou the son of thy servantess.)

¹⁷ Make thou with me a sign in(to) good, that they see, that hate me, and be ashamed (Show thou me a sign of thy goodness, so that those who hate me can see it, and be ashamed); (yea,) for thou, Lord, hast helped me/hast holpen me, and hast comforted me.

16 Therefore Sarai, the wife of Abram, had not engendered [to him] free children; but she had a servantess of Egypt, Hagar by name, (And so Sarai, Abram’s wife, had not borne him any children; but she had an Egyptian slave-girl, named Hagar,)

² and Sarai said to her husband, Lo! the Lord hath closed me (up), (so) that I should not bear (a) child; enter thou [in]to my servantess, if in hap I shall take children, namely of her (and so enter thou to my slave-girl, and perhaps I shall have children through her). And when he assented to her praying,

³ she took Hagar (the) Egyptian, her servantess, after ten years after that they began to inhabit the land of Canaan, and she gave Hagar (as) [a] wife to her husband. (she took her slave-girl, Hagar the Egyptian, and she gave her as a wife to her husband; this was ten years after that they had begun to live in the land of Canaan.)

⁴ And Abram entered [in]to Hagar; and (soon) Hagar saw that she had conceived, and (then) she despised her lady.

⁵ And Sarai said to Abram, Thou doest wickedly against me; I gave my servantess into thy bosom, which seeth that she [hath] conceived, and (now she) despiseth me; the Lord deem betwixt me and thee. (And Sarai said to Abram, Thou doest wickedly against me; I gave my slave-girl into thy arms, and she seeth that she hath conceived, and now she despiseth me; the Lord judge between me and thee.)

⁶ And Abram answered and said to her, Lo! thy servantess is in thine hand; use thou her as thee liketh. Therefore for Sarai tormented her, she fled away. (And Abram answered and said to her, Lo! thy slave-girl is in thy hands; do thou with her as thou pleaseth. And so when Sarai tormented her, she fled away.)

⁷ And when the angel of the Lord had found her beside a well of water in (the) wilderness, which well is in the way of Shur in (the) desert,

⁸ he said to her, From whence comest thou Hagar, the servantess of Sarai (Sarai’s slave-girl), and whither goest thou? Which answered, I flee from the face of Sarai, my lady.

⁹ And the angel of the Lord said to her, Turn thou again to thy lady (Return to thy lady), and be thou meeked under her hands.

¹⁰ And again he said, I multiplying shall multiply thy seed, and it shall not be numbered for multitude. (And again he said, I multiplying shall multiply thy descendants, and they shall not be able to be counted for all their multitude.)

¹¹ And afterward he said (And then he said), Lo! thou hast conceived, and thou shalt bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Ishmael, for the Lord hath heard thy torment;

¹² this shall be a wild man; his hand shall be against all men, and the hands of all men shall be against him; and he shall set (his) tabernacles even against all his brethren (and he shall be at odds with all of his kinsmen).

¹³ Forsooth Hagar called the name of the Lord that spake to her, Thou God that sawest me; for she said, Forsooth here I saw the hinder things of him that saw me. (And Hagar called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, Thou God who sawest me; for she said, Here I saw him who saw me, and I still lived.)

¹⁴ Therefore she called that well, The well of him that liveth and seeth me (And that is why people call that well The Well of Lahairoi, or Beerlahairoi); (and) that well is betwixt Kadesh and Bered.

¹⁵ And they brought to him young children, that he should touch them; and when the disciples saw this thing, they blamed them.

¹⁶ But Jesus called together them, and said, Suffer ye children to come to me, and do not ye forbid them, for of such is the kingdom of heavens.

¹⁷ Truly I say to you, whoever shall not take the kingdom of God as a child, he shall not enter into it.