Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 139

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

¹ O Lord, you have searched me [thoroughly] and have known me.

² You know my downsitting and my uprising; You understand my thought afar off.^(A)

³ You sift and search out my path and my lying down, and You are acquainted with all my ways.

⁴ For there is not a word in my tongue [still unuttered], but, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.^(B)

⁵ You have beset me and shut me in—behind and before, and You have laid Your hand upon me.

⁶ Your [infinite] knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high above me, I cannot reach it.

¹³ For You did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴ I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and for the awful wonder of my birth! Wonderful are Your works, and that my inner self knows right well.

¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret [and] intricately and curiously wrought [as if embroidered with various colors] in the depths of the earth [a region of darkness and mystery].

¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them.

¹⁷ How precious and weighty also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!^(A)

¹⁸ If I could count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awoke, [could I count to the end] I would still be with You.

¹⁰ Woe is me, my mother, that you bore me to be a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither loaned, nor have men loaned to me, yet everyone curses me.^(A)

¹¹ The Lord said, Truly your release, affliction, and strengthening will be for good [purposes]; surely [Jeremiah] I will intercede for you with the enemy and I will cause the enemy to ask for your aid in the time of evil and in the time of affliction.^(B)

¹² Can iron break the iron from the north and the bronze?

¹³ Your [nation’s] substance and your treasures will I give as spoil, without price, and that for all your sins, even in all your territory.

¹⁴ And I will make [your possessions] to pass with your enemies into a land which you do not know and I will make you to serve [your conquerors] there, for a fire is kindled in My anger which will burn upon you [Israel].

¹⁵ [Jeremiah said] O Lord, You know and understand; [earnestly] remember me and visit me and avenge me on my persecutors. Take me not away [from joy or from life itself] in Your long-suffering [to my enemies]; know that for Your sake I suffer and bear reproach.

¹⁶ Your words were found, and I ate them; and Your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.

¹⁷ I sat not in the assembly of those who make merry, nor did I rejoice; I sat alone because Your [powerful] hand was upon me, for You had filled me with indignation.

¹⁸ Why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Will you indeed be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail and are uncertain?

¹⁹ Therefore thus says the Lord [to Jeremiah]: If you return [and give up this mistaken tone of distrust and despair], then I will give you again a settled place of quiet and safety, and you will be My minister; and if you separate the precious from the vile [cleansing your own heart from unworthy and unwarranted suspicions concerning God’s faithfulness], you shall be My mouthpiece. [But do not yield to them.] Let them return to you—not you to [the people].

²⁰ And I will make you to this people a fortified, bronze wall; they will fight against you, but they will not prevail over you, for I am with you to save and deliver you, says the Lord.

²¹ And I will deliver you out of the hands of the wicked, and I will redeem you out of the palms of the terrible and ruthless tyrants.

²⁵ However, I thought it necessary to send Epaphroditus [back] to you. [He has been] my brother and companion in labor and my fellow soldier, as well as [having come as] your special messenger (apostle) and minister to my need.

²⁶ For he has been [homesick] longing for you all and has been distressed because you had heard that he was ill.

²⁷ He certainly was ill [too], near to death. But God had compassion on him, and not only on him but also on me, lest I should have sorrow [over him] ^[a]coming upon sorrow.

²⁸ So I have sent him the more willingly and eagerly, that you may be gladdened at seeing him again, and that I may be the less disquieted.

²⁹ Welcome him [home] then in the Lord with all joy, and honor and highly appreciate men like him,

³⁰ For it was through working for Christ that he came so near death, risking his [very] life to complete the deficiencies in your service to me [which distance prevented you yourselves from rendering].