Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 47

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.

¹ O clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph and songs of joy!

² For the Lord Most High excites terror, awe, and dread; He is a great King over all the earth.

³ He subdued peoples under us, and nations under our feet.

⁴ He chose our inheritance for us, the glory and pride of Jacob, whom He loves. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!^(A)

⁵ God has ascended amid shouting, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.

⁶ Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!

⁷ For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises in a skillful psalm and with understanding.

⁸ God reigns over the nations; God sits upon His holy throne.

⁹ The princes and nobles of the peoples are gathered together, a [united] people for the God of Abraham, for the shields of the earth belong to God; He is highly exalted.

¹⁵ Then Moses went up into the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.

¹⁶ The glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days. On the seventh day [God] called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

¹⁷ And the glory of the Lord appeared to the Israelites like devouring fire on the top of the mountain.

¹⁸ Moses entered into the midst of the cloud and went up the mountain, and Moses was on the mountain forty days and nights.

⁹ I, John, your brother and companion (sharer and participator) with you in the tribulation and kingdom and patient endurance [which are] in Jesus Christ, was on the isle called Patmos, [banished] on account of [my witnessing to] the Word of God and the testimony (the proof, the evidence) for Jesus Christ.

¹⁰ I was in the Spirit [rapt in His power] on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a great voice like the calling of a ^[a]war trumpet,

¹¹ Saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last. Write promptly what you see (your vision) in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia—to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.

¹² Then I turned to see [whose was] the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands,

¹³ And in the midst of the lampstands [One] like a Son of Man, clothed with a robe which reached to His feet and with a girdle of gold about His breast.^(A)

¹⁴ His head and His hair were white like white wool, [as white] as snow, and His eyes [flashed] like a flame of fire.^(B)

¹⁵ His feet glowed like burnished (bright) bronze as it is refined in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters.^(C)

¹⁶ In His right hand He held seven stars, and from His mouth there came forth a sharp two-edged sword, and His face was like the sun shining in full power at midday.^(D)

¹⁷ When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as if dead. But He laid His right hand on me and said, Do not be afraid! I am the First and the Last,^(E)

¹⁸ And the Ever-living One [I am living in the eternity of the eternities]. I died, but see, I am alive forevermore; and I possess the keys of death and Hades (the realm of the dead).