Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
5 Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens,
and Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
6 Your righteousness is like the great mountains,
Your judgments like the great deep;
O Lord, You preserve man and beast.
7 How excellent is Your lovingkindness, O God!
Therefore mankind
seeks refuge in the shadow of Your wings.
8 They will drink their fill from the abundance of Your house,
and You will cause them to drink from the river of Your pleasures.
9 For with You is the fountain of life;
in Your light we see light.
10 Oh, continue Your lovingkindness to those who know You,
and Your righteousness to the upright in heart.
19 But I said:
How can I put you among My sons
and give you a pleasant land,
the most beautiful heritage of the nations?
And I said: You shall call Me, My Father,
and shall not turn away from Me.
20 Surely as a wife treacherously departs from her husband,
so you have dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel,
says the Lord.
21 A voice was heard upon the high places,
the weeping and the supplications of the sons of Israel,
because they have perverted their way,
they have forgotten the Lord their God.
22 Return, O backsliding sons,
and I will heal your backslidings.
“We come to You;
for You are the Lord our God.
23 Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills,
and from the multitude of mountains.
Truly, in the Lord our God
is the salvation of Israel.
24 For shame has devoured the labor
of our fathers from our youth,
their flocks and their herds,
their sons and their daughters.
25 We lie down in our shame,
and our humiliation covers us.
For we have sinned against the Lord our God,
we and our fathers,
from our youth even to this day,
and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”
Questions About Marriage
7 Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” 2 Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. 3 Let the husband render to the wife due affection, and likewise the wife to the husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer. Then come together again, so that Satan does not tempt you for lack of self-control. 6 I speak this as a concession and not as a command. 7 For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man has his proper gift from God, one after this manner and another after that.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.