Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

137 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.

² We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.

³ For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that made us wail [required] mirth, [saying,] Sing us [one] of the songs of Zion.

⁴ How should we sing a song of Jehovah's upon a foreign soil?

⁵ If I forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget [its skill];

⁶ If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to my palate: if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

⁷ Remember, O Jehovah, against the sons of Edom, the day of Jerusalem; who said, Lay [it] bare, Lay [it] bare, down to its foundation!

⁸ Daughter of Babylon, who art to be laid waste, happy he that rendereth unto thee that which thou hast meted out to us.

⁹ Happy he that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the rock.

¹³ What shall I take to witness for thee? what shall I liken unto thee, daughter of Jerusalem? What shall I equal to thee, that I may comfort thee, virgin daughter of Zion? For thy ruin is great as the sea: who will heal thee?

¹⁴ Thy prophets have seen vanity and folly for thee; and they have not revealed thine iniquity, to turn away thy captivity; but have seen for thee burdens of falsehood and causes of expulsion.

¹⁵ All that pass by clap [their] hands at thee; they hiss and shake their head at the daughter of Jerusalem: Is this the city which they called, The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth?

¹⁶ All thine enemies open their mouth against thee, they hiss and gnash the teeth: they say, We have swallowed [her] up; this is forsooth the day that we looked for: we have found, we have seen [it].

¹⁷ Jehovah hath done what he had devised; he hath fulfilled his word which he had commanded from the days of old: he hath thrown down, and hath not spared, and he hath caused the enemy to rejoice over thee; he hath set up the horn of thine adversaries.

¹⁸ Their heart cried unto the Lord. O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a torrent day and night: give thyself no respite; let not the apple of thine eye rest.

¹⁹ Arise, cry out in the night, in the beginning of the watches; pour out thy heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, who faint from hunger at the top of all the streets.

²⁰ See, Jehovah, and consider to whom thou hast done this! Shall the women eat their fruit, the infants that they nursed? Shall priest and prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?

²¹ The child and the old man lie on the ground in the streets; my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword: thou hast slain [them] in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, thou hast not spared.

²² Thou hast called up, as on the day of a set feast, my terrors on every side; and in the day of Jehovah's anger there was none that escaped or remained: those that I have nursed and brought up hath mine enemy consumed.

5 Every one that believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God; and every one that loves him that has begotten loves also him that is begotten of him.

² Hereby know we that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments.

³ For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments; and his commandments are not grievous.

⁴ For all that has been begotten of God gets the victory over the world; and this is the victory which has gotten the victory over the world, our faith.

⁵ Who is he that gets the victory over the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

¹³ These things have I written to you that ye may know that ye have eternal life who believe on the name of the Son of God.

¹⁴ And this is the boldness which we have towards him, that if we ask him anything according to his will he hears us.

¹⁵ And if we know that he hears us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him.

¹⁶ If any one see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life, for those that do not sin unto death. There is a sin to death: I do not say of that that he should make a request.

¹⁷ Every unrighteousness is sin; and there is a sin not to death.

¹⁸ We know that every one begotten of God does not sin, but he that has been begotten of God keeps himself, and the wicked [one] does not touch him.

¹⁹ We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the wicked [one].

²⁰ And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding that we should know him that [is] true; and we are in him that [is] true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.

²¹ Children, keep yourselves from idols.