29th February

¹ I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me.² I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred.³ My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue,⁴ LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is: that I may know how frail I am.⁵ Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.⁶ Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.⁷ And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee.⁸ Deliver me from all my transgressions: make me not the reproach of the foolish.⁹ I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it.¹⁰ Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand.¹¹ When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.¹² Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were.¹³ O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more.

¹ I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.² He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.³ And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the LORD.⁴ Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.⁵ Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.⁶ Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.⁷ Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,⁸ I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.⁹ I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest.¹⁰ I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.¹¹ Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD: let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me.¹² For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.¹³ Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me: O LORD, make haste to help me.¹⁴ Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil.¹⁵ Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha.¹⁶ Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The LORD be magnified.¹⁷ But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.

¹ At the same time, saith the LORD, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.² Thus saith the LORD, The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.³ The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.⁴ Again I will build thee, and thou shalt be built, O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances of them that make merry.⁵ Thou shalt yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria: the planters shall plant, and shall eat them as common things.⁶ For there shall be a day, that the watchmen upon the mount Ephraim shall cry, Arise ye, and let us go up to Zion unto the LORD our God.⁷ For thus saith the LORD; Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chief of the nations: publish ye, praise ye, and say, O LORD, save thy people, the remnant of Israel.⁸ Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither.⁹ They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.¹⁰ Hear the word of the LORD, O ye nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock.¹¹ For the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he.¹² Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the LORD, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock and of the herd: and their soul shall be as a watered garden; and they shall not sorrow any more at all.¹³ Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow.¹⁴ And I will satiate the soul of the priests with fatness, and my people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the LORD.¹⁵ Thus saith the LORD; A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping; Rahel weeping for her children refused to be comforted for her children, because they were not.¹⁶ Thus saith the LORD; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the LORD; and they shall come again from the land of the enemy.¹⁷ And there is hope in thine end, saith the LORD, that thy children shall come again to their own border.¹⁸ I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God.¹⁹ Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth.²⁰ Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the LORD.²¹ Set thee up waymarks, make thee high heaps: set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest: turn again, O virgin of Israel, turn again to these thy cities.²² How long wilt thou go about, O thou backsliding daughter? for the LORD hath created a new thing in the earth, A woman shall compass a man.²³ Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; As yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity; The LORD bless thee, O habitation of justice, and mountain of holiness.²⁴ And there shall dwell in Judah itself, and in all the cities thereof together, husbandmen, and they that go forth with flocks.²⁵ For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.²⁶ Upon this I awaked, and beheld; and my sleep was sweet unto me.²⁷ Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.²⁸ And it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up, and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict; so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the LORD.²⁹ In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten a sour grape, and the children's teeth are set on edge.³⁰ But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge.³¹ Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:³² Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:³³ But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.³⁴ And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.³⁵ Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:³⁶ If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.³⁷ Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.³⁸ Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the city shall be built to the LORD from the tower of Hananeel unto the gate of the corner.³⁹ And the measuring line shall yet go forth over against it upon the hill Gareb, and shall compass about to Goath.⁴⁰ And the whole valley of the dead bodies, and of the ashes, and all the fields unto the brook of Kidron, unto the corner of the horse gate toward the east, shall be holy unto the LORD; it shall not be plucked up, nor thrown down any more for ever.

¹ For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.² For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.³ But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.⁴ For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.⁵ Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:⁶ In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.⁷ Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.⁸ Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;⁹ Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.¹⁰ By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.¹¹ And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:¹² But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;¹³ From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.¹⁴ For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.¹⁵ Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before,¹⁶ This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;¹⁷ And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.¹⁸ Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin.¹⁹ Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus,²⁰ By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;²¹ And having an high priest over the house of God;²² Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.²³ Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)²⁴ And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works:²⁵ Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.²⁶ For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,²⁷ But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.²⁸ He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:²⁹ Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?³⁰ For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.³¹ It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.³² But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions;³³ Partly, whilst ye were made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used.³⁴ For ye had compassion of me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.³⁵ Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward.³⁶ For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.³⁷ For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.³⁸ Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.³⁹ But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.