Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

²⁴ O Lord, how many and varied are Your works! In wisdom have You made them all; the earth is full of Your riches and Your creatures.

²⁵ Yonder is the sea, great and wide, in which are swarms of innumerable creeping things, creatures both small and great.

²⁶ There go the ships of the sea, and Leviathan (the sea monster), which You have formed to sport in it.

²⁷ These all wait and are dependent upon You, that You may give them their food in due season.

²⁸ When You give it to them, they gather it up; You open Your hand, and they are filled with good things.

²⁹ When You hide Your face, they are troubled and dismayed; when You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.

³⁰ When You send forth Your Spirit and give them breath, they are created, and You replenish the face of the ground.

³¹ May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in His works—

³² Who looks on the earth, and it quakes and trembles, Who touches the mountains, and they smoke!

³³ I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have any being.

³⁴ May my meditation be sweet to Him; as for me, I will rejoice in the Lord.

³⁵ Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul! Praise the Lord! (Hallelujah!)

¹⁸ Then was the Lord jealous for His land and had pity on His people.

¹⁹ Yes, the Lord answered and said to His people, Behold, I am sending you grain and juice [of the grape] and oil, and you shall be satisfied with them; and I will no more make you a reproach among the [heathen] nations.

²⁰ But I will remove far off from you the northern [destroyer’s] army and will drive it into a land barren and desolate, with its front toward the eastern [Dead] Sea and with its rear toward the western [Mediterranean] Sea. And its stench shall come up [like that of a decaying mass of locusts, a symbol and forecast of the fate of the northern army in the final day of the Lord], and its foul odor shall come up, because ^[a]He has done great things [the Lord will have destroyed the invaders]!^(A)

²¹ Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things!^(B)

²² Be not afraid, you wild beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness have sprung up and are green; the tree bears its fruit, and the fig tree and the vine yield their [full] strength.

²³ Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord, your God; for He gives you the former or early rain in just measure and in righteousness, and He causes to come down for you the rain, the former rain and the latter rain, as before.

²⁴ And the [threshing] floors shall be full of grain and the vats shall overflow with juice [of the grape] and oil.

²⁵ And I will restore or replace for you the years that the locust has eaten—the hopping locust, the stripping locust, and the crawling locust, My great army which I sent among you.

²⁶ And you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord, your God, Who has dealt wondrously with you. And My people shall never be put to shame.

²⁷ And you shall know, understand, and realize that I am in the midst of Israel and that I the Lord am your God and there is none else. My people shall never be put to shame.

²⁸ And afterward I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.

²⁹ Even upon the menservants and upon the maidservants in those days will I pour out My Spirit.

⁴ Now there are distinctive varieties and distributions of endowments (gifts, ^[a]extraordinary powers distinguishing certain Christians, due to the power of divine grace operating in their souls by the Holy Spirit) and they vary, but the [Holy] Spirit remains the same.

⁵ And there are distinctive varieties of service and ministration, but it is the same Lord [Who is served].

⁶ And there are distinctive varieties of operation [of working to accomplish things], but it is the same God Who inspires and energizes them all in all.

⁷ But to each one is given the manifestation of the [Holy] Spirit [the evidence, the spiritual illumination of the Spirit] for good and profit.

⁸ To one is given in and through the [Holy] Spirit [the power to speak] a message of wisdom, and to another [the power to express] a word of knowledge and understanding according to the same [Holy] Spirit;

⁹ To another [^[b]wonder-working] faith by the same [Holy] Spirit, to another the extraordinary powers of healing by the one Spirit;

¹⁰ To another the working of miracles, to another prophetic insight (^[c]the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose); to another the ability to discern and distinguish between [the utterances of true] spirits [and false ones], to another various kinds of [unknown] tongues, to another the ability to interpret [such] tongues.

¹¹ All these [gifts, achievements, abilities] are inspired and brought to pass by one and the same [Holy] Spirit, Who apportions to each person individually [exactly] as He chooses.