Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

[A Psalm] of David.

138 I will give thee thanks with my whole heart; before the gods will I sing psalms of thee.

² I will bow down toward the temple of thy holiness, and celebrate thy name for thy loving-kindness and for thy truth; for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.

³ In the day when I called thou answeredst me; thou didst encourage me with strength in my soul.

⁴ All the kings of the earth shall celebrate thee, Jehovah, when they have heard the words of thy mouth;

⁵ And they shall sing in the ways of Jehovah, for great is the glory of Jehovah.

⁶ For Jehovah is high; but he looketh upon the lowly, and the proud he knoweth afar off.

⁷ Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou wilt stretch forth thy hand against the anger of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.

⁸ Jehovah will perfect what concerneth me: thy loving-kindness, O Jehovah, [endureth] for ever; forsake not the works of thine own hands.

6 And the ark of Jehovah was in the country of the Philistines seven months.

² And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying, What shall we do with the ark of Jehovah? tell us wherewith we shall send it to its place.

³ And they said, If ye send away the ark of the God of Israel, send it not empty; ye must at any rate return him a trespass-offering: then ye shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why his hand is not removed from you.

⁴ Then they said, What is the trespass-offering which we shall return to him? And they said, Five golden hemorrhoids, and five golden mice, the number of the lords of the Philistines; for one plague is upon them all, and upon your lords.

⁵ And ye shall make images of your hemorrhoids, and images of your mice that destroy the land, and give glory to the God of Israel: perhaps he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land.

⁶ And why will ye harden your heart, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their heart? When he had wrought mightily among them, did they not let them go, and they departed?

⁷ And now make a new cart, and take two milch kine, on which there has come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them;

⁸ and take the ark of Jehovah, and lay it upon the cart, and the golden jewels, which ye return him as a trespass-offering, put in the coffer by the side thereof; and send it away that it may go.

⁹ And see, if it go up by the way of its own border to Beth-shemesh, it is he who has done us this great evil; if not, then we shall know that it is not his hand that touched us; it was a chance [that] happened to us.

¹⁰ And the men did so, and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home.

¹¹ And they laid the ark of Jehovah upon the cart, and the coffer with the golden mice and the images of their sores.

¹² And the kine went straight forward on the way to Beth-shemesh; they went by the one high way, lowing as they went; and they turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them as far as the border of Beth-shemesh.

¹³ And [they of] Beth-shemesh were reaping the wheat-harvest in the valley; and they lifted up their eyes and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it.

¹⁴ And the cart came into the field of Joshua the Beth-shemeshite, and stood there; and a great stone was there. And they clave the wood of the cart, and offered up the kine as a burnt-offering to Jehovah.

¹⁵ And the Levites took down the ark of Jehovah, and the coffer that was with it, in which were the golden jewels, and put them on the great stone; and the men of Beth-shemesh offered up burnt-offerings and sacrificed sacrifices the same day to Jehovah.

¹⁶ And the five lords of the Philistines saw [it], and returned to Ekron the same day.

¹⁷ And these are the golden sores which the Philistines returned as a trespass-offering to Jehovah: for Ashdod one, for Gazah one, for Ashkelon one, for Gath one, for Ekron one;

¹⁸ and the golden mice, [according to] the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both fortified cities and villages of the peasantry; [and they brought them] as far as the great [stone of] Abel, whereon they set down the ark of Jehovah, [which] is to this day in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemeshite.

⁴ And a great crowd coming together, and those who were coming to him out of each city, he spoke by parable:

⁵ The sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell along the way, and it was trodden under foot, and the birds of the heaven devoured it up;

⁶ and other fell upon the rock, and having sprung up, it was dried up because it had not moisture;

⁷ and other fell in the midst of the thorns, and the thorns having sprung up with [it] choked it;

⁸ and other fell into the good ground, and having sprung up bore fruit a hundredfold. As he said these things he cried, He that has ears to hear, let him hear.

⁹ And his disciples asked him [saying], What may this parable be?

¹⁰ And he said, To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest in parables, in order that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.

¹¹ But the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.

¹² But those by the wayside are those who hear; then comes the devil and takes away the word from their heart that they may not believe and be saved.

¹³ But those upon the rock, those who when they hear receive the word with joy; and these have no root, who believe for a time, and in time of trial fall away.

¹⁴ But that that fell where the thorns were, these are they who having heard go away and are choked under cares and riches and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to perfection.

¹⁵ But that in the good ground, these are they who in an honest and good heart, having heard the word keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.