Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
5 Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens;
Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
6 Your righteousness is like the [a]great mountains;
(A)Your judgments are a great deep;
O Lord, You preserve man and beast.
7 How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God!
Therefore the children of men (B)put their trust under the shadow of Your wings.
8 (C)They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house,
And You give them drink from (D)the river of Your pleasures.
9 (E)For with You is the fountain of life;
(F)In Your light we see light.
10 Oh, continue Your lovingkindness to those who know You,
And Your righteousness to the upright in heart.
19 “But I said:
‘How can I put you among the children
And give you (A)a pleasant land,
A beautiful heritage of the hosts of nations?’
“And I said:
‘You shall call Me, (B)“My Father,”
And not turn away from Me.’
20 Surely, as a wife treacherously departs from her [a]husband,
So (C)have you dealt treacherously with Me,
O house of Israel,” says the Lord.
21 A voice was heard on (D)the desolate heights,
Weeping and supplications of the children of Israel.
For they have perverted their way;
They have forgotten the Lord their God.
22 “Return, you backsliding children,
And I will (E)heal your backslidings.”
“Indeed we do come to You,
For You are the Lord our God.
23 (F)Truly, in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills,
And from the multitude of mountains;
(G)Truly, in the Lord our God
Is the salvation of Israel.
24 (H)For shame has devoured
The labor of our fathers from our youth—
Their flocks and their herds,
Their sons and their daughters.
25 We lie down in our shame,
And our [b]reproach covers us.
(I)For we have sinned against the Lord our God,
We and our fathers,
From our youth even to this day,
And (J)have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”
Principles of Marriage
7 Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me:
(A)It is good for a man not to touch a woman. 2 Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. 3 (B)Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 (C)Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that (D)Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 But I say this as a concession, (E)not as a commandment. 7 For (F)I wish that all men were even as I myself. But each one has his own gift from God, one in this manner and another in that.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.