Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
16 Thus says the Lord,
who makes a way in the sea,
a path in the mighty waters,(A)
17 who brings out chariot and horse,
army and warrior;
they lie down; they cannot rise;
they are extinguished, quenched like a wick:(B)
18 Do not remember the former things
or consider the things of old.(C)
19 I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert.(D)
20 The wild animals will honor me,
the jackals and the ostriches,
for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,(E)
21 the people whom I formed for myself
so that they might declare my praise.(F)
Psalm 126
A Harvest of Joy
A Song of Ascents.
4 even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;(A) 6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.(B) 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ(C) 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ,[a] the righteousness from God based on faith.(D) 10 I want to know Christ[b] and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, 11 if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.(E)
Pressing toward the Goal
12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal,[c] but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ[d] has laid hold of me.(F) 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold[e] of it, but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,(G) 14 I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly[f] call of God in Christ Jesus.(H)
Mary Anoints Jesus
12 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.(A) 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him.(B) 3 Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’s feet, and wiped them[a] with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.(C) 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it[b] so that she might keep it for the day of my burial.(D) 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”(E)
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.