Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁵ My soul, rest thou only in God, for my hope is from him.

⁶ He only is my rock and my saving health; he is my defence; I shall not be moved.

⁷ In God is my saving health and my glory; the rock of my strength and my refuge is in God.

⁸ ¶ Wait in him at all times; ye peoples, pour out your heart before him; God is our refuge. Selah.

⁹ Surely the sons of Adam are vanity, and the sons of nobles are a lie; to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.

¹⁰ Trust not in violence and become not vain in the taking of spoil; if riches increase, set not your heart upon them.

¹¹ God has spoken once; twice have I heard this that power belongs unto God.

¹² Also unto thee, O Lord, belongs mercy, for thou renderest to every man according to his work.

⁷ ¶ O LORD, thou hast seduced me, and I was seduced; thou wert stronger than I and hast overcome me; I am in derision daily; every one mocks me.

⁸ For since I spoke out, I raised my voice crying, Violence and destruction; because the word of the LORD has been a reproach unto me and a derision, daily.

⁹ And I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But he was in my heart as a burning fire and within my bones; I tried to forbear, and I could not.

¹⁰ For I heard the murmuring of many, fear on every side, Report, and we will report it. All my friends watched to see if I would stumble. Peradventure he will deceive himself, they said, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.

¹¹ But the LORD is with me as a powerful giant; therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail: they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper; they shall have everlasting confusion which shall never be forgotten.

¹² O LORD of the hosts, who examines that which is just, who seest the kidneys and the heart, let me see thy vengeance on them; for unto thee I have opened my cause.

¹³ Sing unto the LORD, praise ye the LORD; for he has delivered the soul of the poor from the hand of evildoers.

3 ¶ Beloved, I now write unto you this second epistle, in which I alert with exhortation your pure understanding,

² that ye keep in memory the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and of our commandment, that we are apostles of the Lord and Saviour,

³ ¶ knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts

⁴ and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For since the day in which the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

⁵ Of course, they willingly ignore that the heavens were created of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, by the word of God;

⁶ by which the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished;

⁷ but the heavens, which are now, and the earth are conserved by the same word, kept unto the fire in the day of judgment and of perdition of the ungodly men.