Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 127

A Song of ^[a]Ascents. Of Solomon.

¹ Except the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; except the Lord keeps the city, the watchman wakes but in vain.^(A)

² It is vain for you to rise up early, to take rest late, to eat the bread of [anxious] toil—for He gives [blessings] to His beloved in sleep.

³ Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.^(B)

⁴ As arrows are in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth.

⁵ Happy, blessed, and fortunate is the man whose quiver is filled with them! They will not be put to shame when they speak with their adversaries [in gatherings] at the [city’s] gate.

¹¹ And all the people at the gate and the elders said, We are witnesses. May the Lord make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, the two who built the household of Israel. May you do worthily and get wealth (power) in Ephratah and be famous in Bethlehem.

¹² And let your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring which the Lord will give you by this young woman.

¹³ So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. And he went in to her, and the Lord caused her to conceive, and she bore a son.

¹⁴ And the women said to Naomi, Blessed be the Lord, Who has not left you this day without a close kinsman, and may his name be famous in Israel.

¹⁵ And may he be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher and supporter in your old age, for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is better to you than seven sons, has borne him.

¹⁶ Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom and became his nurse.

¹⁷ And her neighbor women gave him a name, saying, A son is born to Naomi. They named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse, the father of David [the ancestor of Jesus Christ].

¹⁵ [Christ, the Messiah] is therefore the Negotiator and Mediator of an [entirely] new agreement (testament, covenant), so that those who are called and offered it may receive the fulfillment of the promised everlasting inheritance—since a death has taken place which rescues and delivers and redeems them from the transgressions committed under the [old] first agreement.

¹⁶ For where there is a [last] will and testament involved, the death of the one who made it must be established,

¹⁷ For a will and testament is valid and takes effect only at death, since it has no force or legal power as long as the one who made it is alive.

¹⁸ So even the [old] first covenant (God’s will) was not inaugurated and ratified and put in force without the shedding of blood.

¹⁹ For when every command of the Law had been read out by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of slain calves and goats, together with water and scarlet wool and with a bunch of hyssop, and sprinkled both the Book (the roll of the Law and covenant) itself and all the people,

²⁰ Saying these words: This is the blood that seals and ratifies the agreement (the testament, the covenant) which God commanded [me to deliver to] you.^(A)

²¹ And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and all the [sacred] vessels and appliances used in [divine] worship.

²² [In fact] under the Law almost everything is purified by means of blood, and without the shedding of blood there is neither release from sin and its guilt nor the remission of the due and merited punishment for sins.

²³ By such means, therefore, it was necessary for the [earthly] copies of the heavenly things to be purified, but the actual heavenly things themselves [required far] better and nobler sacrifices than these.

²⁴ For Christ (the Messiah) has not entered into a sanctuary made with [human] hands, only a copy and pattern and type of the true one, but [He has entered] into heaven itself, now to appear in the [very] presence of God on our behalf.