Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
5 Lord, Your faithful love reaches to heaven,
Your faithfulness to the clouds.(A)
6 Your righteousness is like the highest mountains;
Your judgments, like the deepest sea.(B)
Lord, You preserve man and beast.(C)
7 God, Your faithful love is so valuable
that people take refuge in the shadow of Your wings.(D)
8 They are filled from the abundance of Your house;
You let them drink from Your refreshing stream,(E)
9 for with You is life’s fountain.(F)
In Your light we will see light.(G)
10 Spread Your faithful love over those who know You,
and Your righteousness over the upright in heart.(H)
True Repentance
19 I thought: How I long to make you My sons
and give you a desirable land,
the most beautiful inheritance(A) of all the nations.
I thought: You will call Me, my Father,
and never turn away from Me.
20 However, as a woman may betray her lover,[a]
so you have betrayed(B) Me, house of Israel.
This is the Lord’s declaration.
21 A sound is heard on the barren heights,
the children of Israel weeping and begging for mercy,
for they have perverted their way;
they have forgotten the Lord their God.(C)
22 Return, you faithless children.
I will heal your unfaithfulness.(D)
“Here we are, coming to You,
for You are the Lord our God.
23 Surely, falsehood comes from the hills,
commotion from the mountains,(E)
but the salvation of Israel
is only in the Lord our God.(F)
24 From the time of our youth
the shameful one[b] has consumed
what our fathers have worked for—
their flocks and their herds,
their sons and their daughters.
25 Let us lie down in our shame;
let our disgrace cover us.(G)
We have sinned against the Lord our God,(H)
both we and our fathers,
from the time of our youth even to this day.(I)
We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”
Principles of Marriage
7 Now in response to the matters you wrote[a] about: “It is good for a man not to have relations with[b] a woman.”[c] 2 But because sexual immorality is so common,[d](A) each man should have his own wife,(B) and each woman should have her own husband. 3 A husband should fulfill his marital responsibility(C) to his wife, and likewise a wife to her husband. 4 A wife does not have the right over her own body, but her husband does. In the same way, a husband does not have the right over his own body, but his wife does. 5 Do not deprive(D) one another sexually—except when you agree for a time, to devote yourselves to[e] prayer. Then come together again; otherwise, Satan may tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 I say the following[f] as a concession, not as a command. 7 I wish that all people were just like me. But each has his own gift(E) from God, one person in this way and another in that way.
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