Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

To the Overcomer, A Psalm of David.

¹ ¶ The king shall joy in thy strength, O LORD; and in thy saving health how greatly shall he rejoice!

² Thou hast given him his heart’s desire and hast not withheld the request of his lips. Selah.

³ For thou givest him beforehand the blessings of goodness; thou settest a crown of pure gold on his head.

⁴ He asked life of thee, and thou didst give him length of days for ever and ever.

⁵ His glory is great in thy saving health; honour and beauty hast thou laid upon him.

⁶ For thou hast made him most blessed for ever; thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance.

⁷ ¶ For the king trusts in the LORD, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved.

⁸ Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies; thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee.

⁹ Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger; the LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them.

¹⁰ Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth and their seed from among the children of men.

¹¹ For they intended evil against thee; they imagined a wicked device, but they did not prevail.

¹² Therefore shalt thou separate them; thou shalt make ready thine arrows upon thy strings against the face of them.

¹³ Be thou exalted, LORD, in thine own strength: so will we sing and praise thy valour.

24 ¶ Behold, the LORD makes the earth empty and makes it naked and turns it upside down and scatters abroad its inhabitants.

² And it shall be, as with the people so with the priest; as with the slave so with his master; as with the maid so with her mistress; as with the buyer so with the seller; as with the lender so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury so with the giver of usury to him.

³ The land shall be utterly emptied and utterly spoiled: for the LORD has spoken this word.

⁴ The earth has destroyed itself and fallen; the world has become sick and fallen; the haughty peoples of the earth are become sick.

⁵ The earth is also become bankrupt under its inhabitants because they have transgressed the laws, falsified the order, broken the everlasting covenant.

⁶ Therefore the curse has consumed the earth, and those that dwell therein are found guilty; therefore, the inhabitants of the earth are consumed, and few men left.

⁷ The new wine is lost; the vine is sick; all those who were merryhearted sigh.

⁸ The mirth of tambourines ceases; the noise of those that rejoice ends; the joy of the harp ceases.

⁹ They shall not drink wine with a song; the drink shall be bitter to them that would drink it.

¹⁰ The city of confusion is broken down: every house is shut up that no man may come in.

¹¹ There is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened; the mirth of the land is gone.

¹² In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction.

¹³ ¶ For thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the peoples as the shaking of an olive tree, as the gleanings when the vintage is done.

¹⁴ These shall lift up their voice; they shall sing joyfully in the majesty of the LORD; they shall lift up their voice from the sea.

¹⁵ Therefore glorify ye the LORD in the valleys; let the LORD God of Israel be called upon by name in the isles of the sea.

¹⁶ ¶ From the uttermost part of the earth we have heard psalms, Glory to the righteous one. But I said, My leanness, my leanness, woe unto me! The treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously; yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously.

4 ¶ It is in order then, brethren, that we beseech and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that in the manner ye were taught of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would continue to grow.

² For ye already know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.

³ For the will of God is your sanctification, that ye should separate yourselves from fornication,

⁴ that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honesty,

⁵ not with affection of lust, as the Gentiles who do not know God,

⁶ that no one oppress and defraud his brother in any matter because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.

⁷ For God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto sanctification.

⁸ He therefore that despises us, does not despise man, but God, who has also given unto us his Holy Spirit.

⁹ ¶ But as touching love among the brethren, ye need not that I write unto you, for ye yourselves have learned of God that ye are to show charity to one another.

¹⁰ And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia, but we beseech you, brethren, that ye continue to grow

¹¹ and that ye procure to be quiet and to do your business and to work with your hands, as we commanded you,

¹² that ye may walk honestly toward those that are without, and that ye may desire nothing from any one.