Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

126 When the LORD brought back the captives of Zion, we were like those who dream.

² Then our mouth was filled with laughter and our tongue with joy. Then they said among the heathen, “The LORD has done great things for them.”

³ The LORD has done great things for us! We rejoice!

⁴ O LORD, bring back our captives as the rivers in the south.

⁵ Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.

⁶ They went weeping and carried precious seed. They shall return with joy and bring their sheaves. A song of degrees, or Psalm, of Solomon

⁸ “I will bring forth the blind people and they shall have eyes, and the deaf and they shall have ears.”

⁹ “Let all the nations be gathered together. And let the people be assembled. Who among them can declare this and show us former things? Let them bring forth their witnesses, so that they may be justified. But let them hear, and say, ‘It is truth.’

¹⁰ “You are My witnesses,” says the LORD, “and My servant, whom I have chosen. Therefore, you shall know and believe Me. And you shall understand that I Am. Before Me there was no God formed. Nor shall there be after Me.

¹¹ “I, even I, am the LORD. And besides Me there is no Savior.

¹² “I have declared, and I have saved, and I have shown, when there was no strange god among you. Therefore, you are My witnesses,” says the LORD, “that I am God.

¹³ “Yea, before the day was, I Am. And there is no one who can deliver out of My Hand. I will do it, and who shall reverse it?”

¹⁴ Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “For your sake I have sent to Babel, and brought it down. They are all fugitives. And the Chaldeans cry in the ships.

¹⁵ “I am the LORD, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.”

²⁵ But I thought it necessary to send to you my brother, fellow laborer, and fellow soldier, Epaphroditus (who is now your messenger and minister to my needs).

²⁶ For he longed after all of you, and was full of heaviness, because you had heard that he had been sick.

²⁷ And no doubt he was sick, very near to death. But God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, so that I should not have sorrow upon sorrow.

²⁸ Therefore, I sent him all the more speedily, so that when you would see him again you might rejoice and I might be the less sorrowful.

²⁹ Therefore, receive him in the Lord with all joy. And value such men highly.

³⁰ Because he was near death for the work of Christ and did not regard his life, to fulfill that service which was lacking on your part toward me.

3 Moreover, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! It does not trouble me to write the same things to you. And for you it is certain.