Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 3
Confidence in Troubled Times
A psalm of David when he fled from his son Absalom.(A)
1 Lord, how my foes increase!
There are many who attack me.(B)
2 Many say about me,
“There is no help for him in God.”(C)
3 But You, Lord, are a shield around me,(D)
my glory,(E) and the One who lifts up my head.(F)
4 I cry aloud to the Lord,
and He answers me from His holy mountain.(G)
5 You are to respond by saying in the presence of the Lord your God:
My father was a wandering Aramean.(A) He went down to Egypt with a few people and lived there.(B) There he became a great, powerful, and populous nation. 6 But the Egyptians mistreated and afflicted us, and forced us to do hard labor. 7 So we called out to Yahweh, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our cry and saw our misery, hardship, and oppression.(C) 8 Then the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand and an outstretched arm, with terrifying power, and with signs and wonders. 9 He led us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.(D) 10 I have now brought the first of the land’s produce that You, Lord, have given me.
You will then place the container before the Lord your God and bow down to Him.
32 Remember the earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings.(A) 33 Sometimes you were publicly exposed to taunts and afflictions, and at other times you were companions of those who were treated that way.(B) 34 For you sympathized with the prisoners[a] and accepted with joy the confiscation of your possessions, knowing that you yourselves have a better and enduring possession.[b](C) 35 So don’t throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.(D) 36 For you need endurance, so that after you have done God’s will, you may receive what was promised.(E)
37 For yet in a very little while,
the Coming One will come and not delay.
38 But My righteous one[c] will live by faith;
and if he draws back,
I have no pleasure in him.(F)[d]
39 But we are not those who draw back and are destroyed, but those who have faith and obtain life.
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