Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

¹ ¶ Blessed is the man that does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful.

² But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in his law he meditates day and night.

³ And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.

⁴ ¶ The ungodly are not so but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

⁵ Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

⁶ For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

²⁰ Lift up your eyes, and behold those that come from the north wind: where is the flock that was given thee, the cattle of thy beauty?

²¹ What wilt thou say when he shall visit thee? For thou hast taught them to be princes and as head over thee; shall not sorrows take thee as a woman in travail?

²² ¶ When thou shalt say in thine heart, Why do these things come upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered and thy heels made bare.

²³ Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Likewise ye also cannot do good, being taught to do evil.

²⁴ Therefore I will scatter them as the stubble that passes away by the wind of the wilderness.

²⁵ This shall be thy lot, the portion of thy measures from me said the LORD; because thou hast forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood.

²⁶ Therefore I uncovered thy skirts before thy face, and thy shame was manifested.

²⁷ I have seen thine adulteries and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy whoredom upon the hills; in the same field I saw thine abominations. Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! wilt thou not be made clean at last? How long then shall it be?

¹⁷ And if ye invoke as Father, he who without respect of persons judges according to the work of each one, converse in fear the entire time of your sojourning here,

¹⁸ knowing that ye have been ransomed from your vain conversation (which you received from your fathers), not with corruptible things like silver and gold,

¹⁹ but with the precious blood of the Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without contamination,

²⁰ already ordained from before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for love of you,

²¹ who by him do believe God, who raised him up from the dead and has given him glory: that your faith and hope might be in God.

²² Having purified your souls in the obedience of the truth, by the Spirit, in unfeigned brotherly love, love one another with a pure heart fervently,

²³ being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which lives and abides for ever.

²⁴ ¶ For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away,

²⁵ but the word of the Lord endures for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.

2 ¶ Having therefore left all malice and all guile and hypocrisies and envies and all murmurings,