Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A Song of degrees of David.

¹ ¶ If the LORD had not been for us, now may Israel say,

² If the LORD had not been for us, when men rose up against us,

³ then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their wrath was kindled against us;

⁴ then the waters would have overwhelmed us; the flood would have gone over our soul;

⁵ then the proud waters would have gone over our soul.

⁶ ¶ Blessed be the LORD, who did not give us as a prey to their teeth.

⁷ Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; the snare has broken, and we are escaped.

⁸ Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made the heaven and the earth.

7 ¶ My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.

² Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.

³ Bind them upon thy fingers; write them upon the tablet of thine heart.

⁴ Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister, and call understanding thy kinswoman:

⁷ But unto each one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of the Christ.

⁸ Therefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men.

⁹ (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?

¹⁰ He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all the heavens, that he might fulfill all things.)

¹¹ And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers,

¹² for the perfecting of the saints in the work of the ministry, unto the edifying of the body of the Christ

¹³ until we all come forth in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the coming of age of the Christ:

¹⁴ That we no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men and cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive,

¹⁵ but following the truth in charity, let us grow up into him in all things, who is the head, the Christ:

¹⁶ From whom the whole body fitly joined together and well tied together among itself by the nourishment that every connecting bond supplies, by the operation of each member according to measure they have received, making increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in charity.