Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

120 A Song of the Ascents. Unto Jehovah in my distress I have called, And He answereth me.

² O Jehovah, deliver my soul from a lying lip, From a deceitful tongue!

³ What doth He give to thee? And what doth He add to thee? O deceitful tongue!

⁴ Sharp arrows of a mighty one, with broom-coals.

⁵ Wo to me, for I have inhabited Mesech, I have dwelt with tents of Kedar.

⁶ Too much hath my soul dwelt with him who is hating peace.

⁷ I [am] peace, and when I speak they [are] for war!

1 And in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, at the completion of the word of Jehovah from the mouth of Jeremiah, hath Jehovah waked up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, and he causeth an intimation to pass over into all his kingdom, and also in writing, saying,

² `Thus said Cyrus king of Persia, All kingdoms of the earth hath Jehovah, God of the heavens, given to me, and He hath laid a charge on me to build to Him a house in Jerusalem, that [is] in Judah;

³ who [is] among you of all His people? His God is with him, and he doth go up to Jerusalem, that [is] in Judah, and build the house of Jehovah, God of Israel -- He [is] God -- that [is] in Jerusalem.

⁴ `And every one who is left, of any of the places where he [is] a sojourner, assist him do the men of his place with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, along with a free-will offering for the house of God, that [is] in Jerusalem.'

⁵ And heads of the fathers of Judah and Benjamin rise, and the priests and the Levites, even every one whose spirit God hath waked, to go up to build the house of Jehovah, that [is] in Jerusalem;

⁶ and all those round about them have strengthened [them] with their hands, with vessels of silver, with gold, with goods, and with beasts, and with precious things, apart from all that hath been offered willingly.

⁷ And the king Cyrus hath brought out the vessels of the house of Jehovah that Nebuchadnezzar hath brought out of Jerusalem, and putteth them in the house of his gods;

⁸ yea, Cyrus king of Persia bringeth them out by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and numbereth them to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah.

⁹ And this [is] their number: dishes of gold thirty, dishes of silver a thousand, knives nine and twenty,

¹⁰ basins of gold thirty, basins of silver (seconds) four hundred and ten, other vessels a thousand.

¹¹ All the vessels of gold and of silver [are] five thousand and four hundred; the whole hath Sheshbazzar brought up with the going up of the removal from Babylon to Jerusalem.

¹² For our glorying is this: the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and sincerity of God, not in fleshly wisdom, but in the grace of God, we did conduct ourselves in the world, and more abundantly toward you;

¹³ for no other things do we write to you, but what ye either do read or also acknowledge, and I hope that also unto the end ye shall acknowledge,

¹⁴ according as also ye did acknowledge us in part, that your glory we are, even as also ye [are] ours, in the day of the Lord Jesus;

¹⁵ and in this confidence I was purposing to come unto you before, that a second favour ye might have,

¹⁶ and through you to pass to Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come unto you, and by you to be sent forward to Judea.

¹⁷ This, therefore, counselling, did I then use the lightness; or the things that I counsel, according to the flesh do I counsel, that it may be with me Yes, yes, and No, no?

¹⁸ and God [is] faithful, that our word unto you became not Yes and No,

¹⁹ for the Son of God, Jesus Christ, among you through us having been preached -- through me and Silvanus and Timotheus -- did not become Yes and No, but in him it hath become Yes;