Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

To the chief Musician. [A Psalm] of David, the servant of Jehovah, who spoke to Jehovah the words of this song in the day that Jehovah had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies and out of the hand of Saul. And he said,

18 I will love thee, O Jehovah, my strength.

² Jehovah is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my rock, in whom I will trust; my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower.

³ I will call upon Jehovah, who is to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.

⁴ The bands of death encompassed me, and torrents of Belial made me afraid.

⁵ The bands of Sheol surrounded me, the cords of death encountered me.

⁶ In my distress I called upon Jehovah, and I cried out to my God; he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, into his ears.

⁴³ Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people; thou hast made me the head of the nations: a people I knew not doth serve me.

⁴⁴ At the hearing of the ear, they obey me: strangers come cringing unto me.

⁴⁵ Strangers have faded away, and they come trembling forth from their close places.

⁴⁶ Jehovah liveth; and blessed be my rock; and exalted be the God of my salvation,

⁴⁷ The God who hath avenged me, and hath subjected the peoples to me;

⁴⁸ Who hath delivered me from mine enemies: yea, thou hast lifted me up above them that rose up against me; from the man of violence hast thou delivered me.

⁴⁹ Therefore will I give thanks to thee, Jehovah, among the nations, and will sing psalms to thy name.

⁵⁰ [It is he] who giveth great deliverances to his king, and sheweth loving-kindness to his anointed, to David, and to his seed for evermore.

31 And the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain on mount Gilboa.

² And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and the Philistines smote Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Malchishua, Saul's sons.

³ And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers came up with him; and he was much terrified by the archers.

⁴ Then said Saul to his armour-bearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through with it; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armour-bearer would not; for he was much afraid. So Saul took the sword and fell on it.

⁵ And when his armour-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise on his sword, and died with him.

⁶ So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armour-bearer, and all his men, that same day together.

⁷ And when the men of Israel that were on this side of the valley, and [they] that were on this side of the Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities and fled; and the Philistines came and dwelt in them.

⁸ And it came to pass the next day, that the Philistines came to strip the slain, and they found Saul and his three sons fallen on mount Gilboa.

⁹ And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armour, and sent [them] into the land of the Philistines round about, to announce the glad tidings in the houses of their idols, and to the people.

¹⁰ And they put his armour in the house of Ashtaroth; and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan.

¹¹ And when the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead heard of what the Philistines had done to Saul,

¹² all the valiant men arose and went all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan, and came to Jabesh, and burned them there.

¹³ And they took their bones, and buried them under the tamarisk at Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

9 For concerning the ministration which [is] for the saints, it is superfluous my writing to you.

² For I know your readiness, which I boast of as respects you to Macedonians, that Achaia is prepared since a year ago, and the zeal [reported] of you has stimulated the mass [of the brethren].

³ But I have sent the brethren, in order that our boasting about you may not be made void in this respect, in order that, as I have said, ye may be prepared;

⁴ lest haply, if Macedonians come with me and find you unprepared, *we*, that we say not *ye*, may be put to shame in this confidence.

⁵ I thought it necessary therefore to beg the brethren that they would come to you, and complete beforehand your fore-announced blessing, that this may be ready thus as blessing, and not as got out of you.