Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
To the Overcomer for the sons of Korah, Maschil.
1 ¶ We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days in the times of old.
2 How thou didst drive out the Gentiles with thy hand and plant them in their place; how thou didst afflict the peoples and cast them out.
3 For they did not get the land in inheritance by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them, but thy right hand and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance because thy delight was in them.
4 Thou art my King, O God; command saving health unto Jacob.
5 Through thee will we push down our enemies; through thy name will we tread under those that rise up against us.
6 For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.
7 But thou hast saved us from our enemies and hast put to shame those that hated us.
8 In God we boast all the day long and praise thy name for ever. Selah.
9 ¶ But thou hast cast us off and put us to shame and doth not go forth with our armies.
10 Thou makest us to turn back from the enemy, and we are spoiled by those who hate us.
11 Thou hast given us over like sheep appointed for food and hast scattered us among the Gentiles.
12 Thou hast sold thy people for nothing and dost not increase thy wealth by their price.
13 Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to those that are round about us.
14 Thou makest us a byword among the Gentiles, a shaking of the head among the people.
15 My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face has covered me,
16 for the voice of him that reproaches and blasphemes by reason of the enemy and of the avenger.
17 ¶ All this is come upon us; yet we have not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant.
18 Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way
19 though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons and covered us with the shadow of death.
20 If we have forgotten the name of our God or stretched out our hands to a strange god,
21 shall not God search this out? For he knows the secrets of the heart.
22 Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
23 Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, do not cast us off for ever.
24 Why dost thou hide thy face and forget our affliction and our oppression?
25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust; our belly cleaves unto the earth.
26 Arise for our help and ransom us for thy mercies’ sake.
14 ¶ Therefore, behold, I will induce her and bring her into the wilderness and speak unto her heart.
15 And I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she shall sing there as in the days of her youth and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
16 And it shall be in that time, saith the LORD, that thou shalt call me My Husband, and shalt no longer call me Baali.
17 For I will take away the names of Baals out of her mouth, and they shall no longer be remembered by their name.
18 And in that time I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of the heaven and with the serpents of the earth; and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle of the earth and will cause them to sleep safely.
19 And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness and in judgment and in mercy.
20 I will even betroth thee unto me in faith: and thou shalt know the LORD.
21 And it shall come to pass in that day, I will respond, saith the LORD, I will respond to the heavens, and they shall respond to the earth;
22 and the earth shall respond to the wheat and the wine and the oil; and they shall respond to Jezreel.
23 And I will sow her unto me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon Loruhamah, {her that had not obtained mercy} and I will say to Loammi, {those who were not my people} Thou art my people; and he shall say, Thou art my God.
3 ¶ Then the LORD said unto me again, Go, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the sons of Israel, who look to other gods and love flagons of wine.
2 So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and an homer and a half of barley:
3 and I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many days; thou shalt not play the harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man: so will I also be for thee.
4 For the sons of Israel shall abide many days without king and without Lord and without sacrifice and without image, and without ephod and without teraphim;
5 afterward the sons of Israel shall return, and they shall seek the LORD their God and David their king; and they shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the end of the days.
16 ¶ Let no one therefore judge you in food or in drink or in respect of a feast day or of the new moon or of the sabbath days,
17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of the Christ.
18 Let no one govern you according to their own will under pretext of humility and religion of angels, intruding into those things which they have not seen, vainly puffed up by their fleshly mind,
19 and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, fed and united by its joints and bonds, grows in the increase of God.
20 For if ye are dead with the Christ to the elements of the world, why, as though living unto the world, do ye decree rites,
21 touch not; taste not; handle not?
22 Which all perish with the using, because they are the commandments and doctrines of men,
23 which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will worship and humility and neglecting of the body, but they have absolutely no value against the appetites of the flesh.
3 ¶ If ye then are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where the Christ sits at the right hand of God.
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