Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

² Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; He also has become my salvation.”

³ Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation;

⁴ and in that day shall ye say: “Praise the Lord! Call upon His name! Declare His doings among the people; make mention that His name is exalted.

⁵ Sing unto the Lord, for He hath done excellent things; this is known in all the earth.

⁶ Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion! For great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.”

⁴ Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail,

⁵ saying, “When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? And the Sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit,

⁶ that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes, yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?”

⁷ The Lord hath sworn for the pretensions of Jacob: “Surely I will never forget any of their works.

⁸ Shall not the land tremble for this, and every one mourn that dwelleth therein? And it shall rise up wholly as a flood; and it shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt.

⁹ And it shall come to pass in that day,” saith the Lord God, “that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.

¹⁰ And I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon every head; and I will make it as the mourning for an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day.

¹¹ “Behold, the days come,” saith the Lord God, “that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.

¹² And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.

9 Now concerning the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you.

² For I know the forwardness of your thinking, for which I boast of you to those of Macedonia that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal hath called forth very many.

³ Yet I have sent the brethren, lest our boasting of you on this account should be in vain, that, as I said, ye may be ready;

⁴ lest it might happen, if those of Macedonia come with me and find you unprepared, that we (that we say not “ye”) should be ashamed in this same confident boasting.

⁵ Therefore I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren to go ahead unto you and make up your bounty beforehand (whereof ye had notice beforehand), that the same might be ready as a matter of bounty, and not as of covetousness.

⁶ But this I say: He who soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he who soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.

⁷ As every man purposeth in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly or out of compulsion; for God loveth the cheerful giver.

⁸ And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound in every good work.

⁹ As it is written: “He hath dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness remaineth for ever.”

¹⁰ Now may He that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness,

¹¹ ye being enriched in everything to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God.

¹² For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also in much thanksgiving unto God,

¹³ while by the experience of this ministration they glorify God for your freely declared subjection unto the Gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them and unto all men,

¹⁴ and by their prayer for you, they who long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you.

¹⁵ Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!