Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

To the chief Musician. 'Destroy not.' Of David. Michtam.

58 Is righteousness indeed silent? Do ye speak it? Do ye judge with equity, ye sons of men?

² Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth.

³ The wicked go astray from the womb; they err as soon as they are born, speaking lies.

⁴ Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: [they are] like the deaf adder which stoppeth her ear;

⁵ Which doth not hearken to the voice of enchanters, of one charming ever so wisely.

⁶ O God, break their teeth in their mouth; break out the great teeth of the young lions, O Jehovah.

⁷ Let them melt away as waters that flow off; when he aimeth his arrows, let them be as blunted:

⁸ Let them be as a snail that melteth as it passeth away; [like] the untimely birth of a woman, let them not see the sun.

⁹ Before your pots feel the thorns, green or burning,—they shall be whirled away.

¹⁰ The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his footsteps in the blood of the wicked:

¹¹ And men shall say, Verily there is fruit for the righteous; verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth.

3 They say, If a man put away his wife, and she go from him, and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? Would not that land be utterly polluted? But thou hast committed fornication with many lovers; yet return to me, saith Jehovah.

² Lift up thine eyes unto the heights and see, where hast thou not been lain with? In the ways hast thou sat for them, as an Arab in the wilderness; and thou hast polluted the land with thy fornications and with thy wickedness.

³ And the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain; but thou hast a harlot's forehead, thou refusest to be ashamed.

⁴ Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the guide of my youth?

⁵ Will he keep [his anger] for ever? Will he preserve it perpetually? Behold, thou hast spoken and hast done evil things, and thou art [so] determined.

⁶ And Jehovah said unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen what backsliding Israel hath done? She hath gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath committed fornication.

⁷ And I said, After she hath done all these [things], she will return unto me; but she returned not. And her sister Judah, the treacherous, saw [it].

⁸ And I saw that when for all the causes wherein backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce, yet the treacherous Judah, her sister, feared not, but went and committed fornication also.

⁹ And it came to pass through the lightness of her fornication that she polluted the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks.

¹⁰ And even for all this her treacherous sister Judah hath not returned unto me with her whole heart, but with falsehood, saith Jehovah.

¹¹ And Jehovah said unto me, Backsliding Israel hath shewn herself more just than treacherous Judah.

¹² Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel, saith Jehovah: I will not make my face dark upon you; for I am merciful, saith Jehovah; I will not keep [anger] for ever.

¹³ Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against Jehovah thy God, and hast turned thy ways hither and thither to the strangers under every green tree; and ye have not hearkened to my voice, saith Jehovah.

¹⁴ Return, backsliding children, saith Jehovah; for I am a husband unto you, and I will take you, one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion.

1 Paul, bondman of God, and apostle of Jesus Christ according to [the] faith of God's elect, and knowledge of [the] truth which [is] according to piety;

² in [the] hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the ages of time,

³ but has manifested in its own due season his word, in [the] proclamation with which *I* have been entrusted, according to [the] commandment of our Saviour God;

⁴ to Titus, my own child according to [the] faith common [to us]: Grace and peace from God [the] Father, and Christ Jesus our Saviour.

⁵ For this cause I left thee in Crete, that thou mightest go on to set right what remained [unordered], and establish elders in each city, as *I* had ordered thee:

⁶ if any one be free from all charge [against him], husband of one wife, having believing children not accused of excess or unruly.

⁷ For the overseer must be free from all charge [against him] as God's steward; not headstrong, not passionate, not disorderly through wine, not a striker, not seeking gain by base means;

⁸ but hospitable, a lover of goodness, discreet, just, pious, temperate,

⁹ clinging to the faithful word according to the doctrine taught, that he may be able both to encourage with sound teaching and refute gainsayers.