Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ Judge me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity; I have trusted also in the LORD; therefore I shall not slide.
2 Examine me, O LORD and prove me; melt my kidneys and my heart.
3 For thy mercy is before my eyes, and I walk in thy truth.
4 I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with hypocrites.
5 I have hated the congregation of evil doers and will not sit with the wicked.
6 ¶ I will wash my hands in innocency, so I will walk near unto thine altar, O LORD:
7 That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving and tell of all thy wondrous works.
8 LORD, I have loved the habitation of thy house and the place of the tabernacle of thy glory.
9 Gather not my soul with the sinners, nor my life with those who have blood on their hands:
10 In whose hands are wicked devices, and their right hand is full of bribes.
11 But as for me, I will walk in my integrity; ransom me and be merciful unto me.
12 I have walked uprightly; in the congregations I will bless the LORD.
11 ¶ Now three friends of Job, Eliphaz, the Temanite, Bildad, the Shuhite, and Zophar, the Naamathite, when they heard of all this evil that had come upon him, each one came from his own place; for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.
12 And when they lifted up their eyes afar off and knew him not, they lifted up their voice and wept; and each one rent his mantle and sprinkled dust upon his head toward heaven.
13 So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word unto him; for they saw that his grief was very great.
3 ¶ After this Job opened his mouth and cursed his day.
2 And Job spoke and said,
3 Let the day perish in which I was born and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
4 Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above; neither let the light shine upon it.
5 Let darkness and the shadow of death redeem it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.
6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months.
7 O, let that night be solitary; let no song come therein!
8 Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise up their mourning.
9 Let the stars of its dawn be darkened; they waited for light, but have none; neither let them see the dawning of the day;
10 because it did not shut up the doors of my mother’s womb nor hide the misery from my eyes.
11 ¶ Why did I not die from the womb? Why did I not give up the spirit when I came out of the belly?
12 Why did the knees receive me? Of what use the breasts that I should suck?
13 For now I should have lain still and been quiet; I should have slept; then I would have been at rest,
14 with the kings and the counsellors of the earth, who built desolate places for themselves;
15 or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver.
16 Or, why was I not hidden as an untimely birth, as infants who never saw light?
17 There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary are at rest.
18 There the prisoners rest together, they do not hear the voice of the oppressor.
19 The small and the great are there, and the slave is free from his master.
20 ¶ Why is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;
21 who long for death, but it comes not; and search for it more than for hid treasures;
22 who rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave;
23 to the man who does not know which way he goes and whom God has hedged in?
24 For my sighing comes before I eat, and my roarings are poured out like the waters.
25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.
26 I never had prosperity, nor did I secure myself, neither was I at rest; yet trouble came.
23 But before faith came, we were under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
24 Therefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
25 But when faith is come, we are no longer under the hand of the schoolmaster.
26 For ye are all sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
28 Here there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
29 And if ye are Christ’s, then ye are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.
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