⁴³ Then Laban answered and said to Jacob, “The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine. But what can I do this day for these my daughters or for their children whom they have borne? ⁴⁴ Come now, ^(A)let us make a covenant, you and I. ^(B)And let it be a witness between you and me.” ⁴⁵ So Jacob ^(C)took a stone and set it up as a pillar. ⁴⁶ And Jacob said to his kinsmen, “Gather stones.” And they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there by the heap. ⁴⁷ Laban called it Jegar-sahadutha,^[a] but Jacob called it Galeed.^{[b] 48} Laban said, ^(D)“This heap is a witness between you and me today.” Therefore he named it Galeed, ^49 (E)and Mizpah,^[c] for he said, “The Lord watch between you and me, when we are out of one another's sight. ⁵⁰ If you oppress my daughters, or if you take wives besides my daughters, although no one is with us, see, ^(F)God is witness between you and me.”

⁵¹ Then Laban said to Jacob, “See this heap and the pillar, which I have set between you and me. ^52 (G)This heap is a witness, and the pillar is a witness, that I will not pass over this heap to you, and you will not pass over this heap and this pillar to me, to do harm. ⁵³ The God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us.” So Jacob swore by the ^(H)Fear of his father Isaac, ⁵⁴ and Jacob offered a sacrifice in the hill country and called ^(I)his kinsmen to eat bread. They ate bread and spent the night in the hill country.

^55 [d] Early in the morning Laban arose and kissed ^(J)his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them. Then Laban departed and returned home.

Samson and Delilah

16 Samson went to ^(A)Gaza, and there he saw a prostitute, and he went in to her. ² The Gazites were told, “Samson has come here.” And they ^(B)surrounded the place and set an ambush for him all night at the gate of the city. They kept quiet all night, saying, “Let us wait till the light of the morning; then we will kill him.” ³ But Samson lay till midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the gate of the city and the two posts, and pulled them up, bar and all, and put them on his shoulders and carried them to the top of the hill that is in front of Hebron.

⁴ After this he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. ⁵ And ^(C)the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, ^(D)“Seduce him, and see where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to ^(E)humble him. And we will each give you 1,100 pieces of silver.” ⁶ So Delilah said to Samson, “Please tell me where your great strength lies, and how you might be bound, that one could ^(F)subdue you.”

⁷ Samson said to her, “If they bind me with seven fresh bowstrings that have not been dried, ^(G)then I shall become weak and be like any other man.” ⁸ Then the lords of the Philistines brought up to her seven fresh bowstrings that had not been dried, and she bound him with them. ⁹ Now she had men lying in ambush in an inner chamber. And she said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he snapped the bowstrings, as a thread of flax snaps when it touches the fire. So the secret of his strength was not known.

¹⁰ Then Delilah said to Samson, “Behold, you have mocked me and told me lies. Please tell me how you might be bound.” ¹¹ And he said to her, “If they bind me with ^(H)new ropes that have not been used, then I shall become weak and be like any other man.” ¹² So Delilah took new ropes and bound him with them and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And the men lying in ambush were in an inner chamber. But he snapped the ropes off his arms like a thread.

¹³ Then Delilah said to Samson, “Until now you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me how you might be bound.” And he said to her, “If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web and fasten it tight with the pin, then I shall become weak and be like any other man.” ¹⁴ So while he slept, Delilah took the seven locks of his head and wove them into the web.^[a] And she made them tight with the pin and said to him, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” But he awoke from his sleep and pulled away the pin, the loom, and the web.

¹⁵ And she said to him, ^(I)“How can you say, ‘I love you,’ when your heart is not with me? You have mocked me these three times, and you have not told me where your great strength lies.” ¹⁶ And ^(J)when she pressed him hard with her words day after day, and urged him, his soul was vexed to death. ¹⁷ And he told her all his heart, and said to her, ^(K)“A razor has never come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite to God from my mother's womb. If my head is shaved, then my strength will leave me, and I shall become weak and be like any other man.”

¹⁸ When Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called the lords of the Philistines, saying, “Come up again, for he has told me all his heart.” Then the lords of the Philistines came up to her and brought ^(L)the money in their hands. ¹⁹ She made him sleep on her knees. And she called a man and had him shave off the seven locks of his head. Then she began ^(M)to torment him, and his strength left him. ²⁰ And she said, “The Philistines are upon you, Samson!” And he awoke from his sleep and said, “I will go out as at other times and shake myself free.” But he did not know that ^(N)the Lord had left him. ²¹ And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes and brought him down to Gaza and bound him with bronze shackles. ^(O)And he ground at the mill in the prison. ²² But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.

Israel's Only Savior

Elihu Rebukes Job's Three Friends

32 So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was ^(A)righteous in his own eyes. ² Then Elihu the son of Barachel ^(B)the Buzite, of the family of Ram, burned with anger. He burned with anger at Job because he justified himself ^(C)rather than God. ³ He burned with anger also at Job's three friends because they had found no answer, although they had ^(D)declared Job to be in the wrong. ⁴ Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job because they were older than he. ⁵ And when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, he burned with anger.

⁶ And Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered and said:

⁶ but ^(A)whoever causes one of these ^(B)little ones who believe in me to sin,^[a] it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

Temptations to Sin

⁷ “Woe to the world for ^(C)temptations to sin!^{[b] (D)}For it is necessary that temptations come, ^(E)but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes! ^8 (F)And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into ^(G)the eternal fire. ^9 (H)And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the ^(I)hell^[c] of fire.

The Parable of the Lost Sheep

¹⁰ “See that you do not despise ^(J)one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven ^(K)their angels always ^(L)see the face of my Father who is in heaven.^{[d] 12 (M)}What do you think? ^(N)If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? ¹³ And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. ¹⁴ So ^(O)it is not the will of my^[e] Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.

⁹ And the Lord said to Paul ^(A)one night in ^(B)a vision, ^(C)“Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, ^10 (D)for I am with you, and ^(E)no one will attack you to harm you, for ^(F)I have many in this city who are my people.” ¹¹ And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

¹² But when Gallio was ^(G)proconsul of Achaia, ^(H)the Jews^[a] made a united attack on Paul and ^(I)brought him before the tribunal, ¹³ saying, “This man is persuading people to worship God contrary to ^(J)the law.” ¹⁴ But when Paul was about to open his mouth, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of wrongdoing or vicious ^(K)crime, O Jews, I would have reason to accept your complaint. ¹⁵ But ^(L)since it is a matter of questions about words and names and ^(M)your own law, see to it yourselves. I refuse to be a judge of these things.” ¹⁶ And he drove them from the tribunal. ¹⁷ And they all seized Sosthenes, the ruler of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of this.