Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
44 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 heathen with Thy hand, and planted them; how Thou didst afflict the people, and cast them out.
3 For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them, but by Thy right hand and Thine arm and the light of Thy countenance, because Thou hadst favor unto them.
4 Thou art my King, O God; command deliverances for Jacob.
5 Through Thee will we push down our enemies; through Thy name will we tread them under 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 them to shame 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 goest not forth with our armies.
10 Thou makest us to turn back from the enemy, and they that hate us despoil us for themselves.
11 Thou hast given us up like sheep appointed for slaughter, and hast scattered us among the heathen.
12 Thou sellest Thy people for nought, and dost not increase Thy wealth by their price.
13 Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.
14 Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people.
15 My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me,
16 for the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth by reason of the enemy and avenger.
17 All this has come upon us; yet have we not forgotten Thee, neither have we dealt falsely in Thy covenant.
18 Our heart has not turned back, neither have our steps turned from Thy way,
19 though Thou hast sorely broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.
20 If we had forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god,
21 shall not God search this out? For He knoweth the secrets of the heart.
22 Yea, for Thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
23 Awake! Why sleepest Thou, O Lord? Arise! Cast us not off for ever.
24 Why hidest Thou Thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust; our belly cleaveth unto the earth.
26 Arise for our help, and redeem us for Thy mercies’ sake.
14 “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortingly unto her.
15 And I will give her her vineyards from thence, 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 at that day,” saith the Lord, “that thou shalt call Me ‘Ishi’ [that is, My husband], and shalt call Me no more ‘Baali’ [that is, My Lord].
17 For I will take away the names of the Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name.
18 And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of the heavens, and with the creeping things of the ground; and I will break the bow and the sword and warfare out of the earth, and will make them to lie down 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 lovingkindness, and in mercies.
20 I will even betroth thee unto Me in faithfulness, and thou shalt know the Lord.
21 “And it shall come to pass in that day I will hear,” saith the Lord, “I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth.
22 And the earth shall hear the corn and the wine and the oil, and they shall hear Jezreel.
23 And I will sow her unto Me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to those who were not My people, ‘Thou art My people’; and they shall say, ‘Thou art my God.’”
3 Then said the Lord unto me, “Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend yet an adulteress, according to the love of the Lord toward the children 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 for a homer of barley and a half homer 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 children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and without teraphim.
5 Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the Lord their God and David their king, and shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.
16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat or drink, or in respect to a holy day or the new moon or the Sabbath days,
17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.
18 Let no man beguile you of your reward by feigned humility and worshiping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, being vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
19 and not holding to the Head, from whom all the body, having nourishment ministered and knit together by joints and bands, increaseth with the increase from God.
20 Therefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to its ordinances
21 (“Touch not, taste not, handle not,”
22 which all are to perish with the using), according to the commandments and doctrines of men?
23 These things have indeed a show of wisdom in willworship and humility and neglecting of the body, but are not in any honor against the satisfying of the flesh.
3 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.
Copyright © 1994 by Deuel Enterprises, Inc.