Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
To the Overcomer, even to Jeduthun, A Psalm of David.
1 ¶ I said, I will take heed to my ways that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bit while the wicked is against me.
2 I was dumb with silence; I held my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred.
3 My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue,
4 LORD, make me to know my end and the measure of my days, what it is that I may know how long I am to be of this world.
5 Behold, thou hast made my days as a handbreadth, and my age is as nothing before thee; verily every man that lives is altogether vanity. Selah.
6 Surely man walks in darkness; surely they are disquieted in vain; they heap up riches not knowing who shall gather them.
7 ¶ And now, Lord, what shall I wait for? My hope is in thee.
8 Deliver me from all my rebellions; do not make me the reproach of the foolish.
9 I was dumb, I opened not my mouth because thou didst it.
10 Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand.
11 When thou with chastening dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his greatness to consume away like a moth; surely every man is vanity. Selah.
12 Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.
13 O spare me, that I may recover strength before I go from here and be no more.
12 But where shall wisdom be found? And where is the place of understanding?
13 Man never knew its price; neither is it found in the land of the living.
14 ¶ The deep saith, It is not in me; and the sea saith, It is not with me.
15 It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for its price.
16 It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx or the sapphire.
17 Gold cannot equal it, nor can diamond; neither shall it be exchanged for vessels of fine gold.
18 No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls; for wisdom is better than precious stones.
19 The emerald of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold.
20 ¶ Where then does wisdom come from? And where is the place of understanding?
21 Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living and kept concealed from every fowl of the heaven.
22 Hell and death say, We have heard its fame with our ears.
23 God understands its way, and he alone knows its place.
24 For he looks unto the ends of the earth and sees under the whole heaven,
25 To make a weight for the wind and to supply water by measure,
26 when he made a law for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunders.
27 Then he saw it and counted it; he prepared it and also searched it out.
28 And unto man he said, Behold, that the fear of the Lord, is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.
29 ¶ Moreover, Job continued his parable and said,
2 Oh, that I were as in months past, as in the days when God preserved me;
3 when his lamp shone upon my head, and by its light I walked in the darkness;
4 as I was in the days of my youth, when God was familiar in my tent;
5 when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me;
6 when I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil!
7 ¶ When I went out to the gate to judgment, when I had my seat prepared in the plaza!
8 The young men would see me and hide themselves, and the aged would arise and stand.
9 The princes would refrain from talking and lay their hand on their mouth;
10 the voice of the principals would not be noticed, and their tongue would cleave to the roof of their mouth.
8 ¶ And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.
2 And I saw the seven angels which stood before God, and to them were given seven trumpets.
3 And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense of the prayers of all the saints, that he should offer upon the golden altar which was before the throne.
4 And the smoke of the incense of the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand.
5 And the angel took the censer and filled it with fire of the altar and cast it into the earth; and there were voices and thunderings and lightnings and an earthquake.
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