Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

[A Psalm] of David.

28 Unto thee, Jehovah, do I call; my rock, be not silent unto me, lest, [if] thou keep silence toward me, I become like them that go down into the pit.

² Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward the oracle of thy holiness.

³ Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, who speak peace to their neighbours, and mischief is in their heart.

⁴ Give them according to their doing, and according to the wickedness of their deeds; give them after the work of their hands, render to them their desert.

⁵ For they regard not the deeds of Jehovah, nor the work of his hands: he will destroy them, and not build them up.

⁶ Blessed be Jehovah, for he hath heard the voice of my supplications.

⁷ Jehovah is my strength and my shield; my heart confided in him, and I was helped: therefore my heart exulteth, and with my song will I praise him.

⁸ Jehovah is their strength; and he is the stronghold of salvation to his anointed one.

⁹ Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance; and feed them, and lift them up for ever.

⁹ Therefore is justice far from us, and righteousness overtaketh us not: we wait for light, and behold darkness; for brightness, [but] we walk in obscurity.

¹⁰ We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at midday as in the twilight; amongst the flourishing we are as the dead.

¹¹ We roar all like bears, and mourn grievously like doves: we look for judgment, and there is none; for salvation, [but] it is far from us.

¹² For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us; and our iniquities, we know them:

¹³ in transgressing and lying against Jehovah, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.

¹⁴ And judgment is turned away backward, and righteousness standeth afar off; for truth stumbleth in the street, and uprightness cannot enter.

¹⁵ And truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey. And Jehovah saw [it], and it was evil in his sight that there was no judgment.

¹⁶ And he saw that there was no man, and he wondered that there was no intercessor; and his arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness, it sustained him.

¹⁷ And he put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation upon his head; and he put on garments of vengeance [for] clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.

¹⁸ According to deeds, so will he repay: fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies; to the islands he will repay recompence.

¹⁹ And they shall fear the name of Jehovah from the west, and from the rising of the sun, his glory. When the adversary shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of Jehovah will lift up a banner against him.

2 Laying aside therefore all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envyings and all evil speakings,

² as newborn babes desire earnestly the pure mental milk of the word, that by it ye may grow up to salvation,

³ if indeed ye have tasted that the Lord [is] good.

⁴ To whom coming, a living stone, cast away indeed as worthless by men, but with God chosen, precious,

⁵ yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

⁶ Because it is contained in the scripture: Behold, I lay in Zion a corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believes on him shall not be put to shame.

⁷ To you therefore who believe [is] the preciousness; but to the disobedient, the stone which the builders cast away as worthless, this is become head of [the] corner,

⁸ and a stone of stumbling and rock of offence; [who] stumble at the word, being disobedient to which also they have been appointed.

⁹ But *ye* [are] a chosen race, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a people for a possession, that ye might set forth the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness to his wonderful light;

¹⁰ who once [were] not a people, but now God's people; who were not enjoying mercy, but now have found mercy.