Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Shiggaion of David, which he sang unto the LORD, concerning the words of Cush the Benjamite.

¹ ¶ O LORD my God, in thee I have put my trust: save me from all those that persecute me, and deliver me

² Lest they take my soul, as a lion dismembers his prey when there is none to deliver.

³ O LORD my God, if I have done this: if there is iniquity in my hands,

⁴ if I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me, then let my persecutor escape without retribution.

⁵ Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it; let him tread down my life upon the earth and lay my honour in the dust. Selah.

⁶ Arise, O LORD, in thine anger; lift up thyself because of the rage of mine enemies: and awake the judgment in my favour that thou hast commanded.

⁷ So shall the congregation of the people compass thee about, for their sakes therefore return thou on high.

⁸ The LORD shall judge the people: judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.

⁹ Let wickedness consume the wicked; but establish the just: for the righteous God is he who tries the hearts and kidneys.

¹⁰ ¶ My shield is in God, he who saves the upright in heart.

¹¹ God is he who judges the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.

¹² If he does not turn, he will whet his sword; he has bent his bow and made it ready.

¹³ He has also prepared for him the weapons of death; he ordains his arrows against the persecutors.

¹⁴ Behold, he travails with iniquity and has conceived of his own work and brought forth falsehood.

¹⁵ He made a pit and deepened it and shall fall into the ditch which he made.

¹⁶ His work shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.

¹⁷ I will praise the LORD according to his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the LORD most high.

⁶ ¶ I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities and want of bread in all your places: yet ye have not returned unto me, said the LORD.

⁷ And also I have withheld the rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest, and I caused it to rain upon one city and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece upon which it did not rain withered.

⁸ So two or three cities wandered unto one city to drink water, but they were not satisfied, yet ye have not returned unto me, said the LORD.

⁹ I have smitten you with the east wind and with the caterpillar; your many gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees were devoured by the locust; yet ye have never returned unto me, said the LORD.

¹⁰ I have sent among you the pestilence in the way to Egypt; your young men have I slain with the sword, and have taken away your horses; and I have made the stink of your camps to come up unto your nostrils; and ye never returned unto me, said the LORD.

¹¹ I have overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the fire; and ye never returned unto me, said the LORD.

¹² Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel; and because I must do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.

¹³ For, behold, he that forms the mountains and creates the wind and declares unto man what is his thought, that makes the darkness into morning and treads above the high places of the earth, The LORD, The God of the hosts, is his name.

¹¹ ¶ For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, That we should love one another.

¹² Not as Cain, who was of the wicked one and killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.

¹³ Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hates you.

¹⁴ ¶ We know that we are passed from death unto life, in that we love the brethren. He that does not love his brother abides in death.

¹⁵ Whosoever hates his brother is a murderer and ye know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

¹⁶ In this we have known the charity of God because he laid down his life for us; we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

¹⁷ But whosoever has this world’s goods and sees his brother have need and shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, how does the charity of God abide in him?