²⁷ Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, ^(A)in the land of Goshen. ^(B)And they gained possessions in it, and were fruitful and multiplied greatly. ²⁸ And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. ^(C)So the days of Jacob, the years of his life, were 147 years.

²⁹ And ^(D)when the time drew near that Israel must die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, “If now ^(E)I have found favor in your sight, ^(F)put your hand under my thigh and ^(G)promise to deal kindly and truly with me. ^(H)Do not bury me in Egypt, ³⁰ but let me lie with my fathers. Carry me out of Egypt and ^(I)bury me in their burying place.” He answered, “I will do as you have said.” ³¹ And he said, “Swear to me”; and he swore to him. Then ^(J)Israel bowed himself upon the head of his bed.^[a]

¹⁰ The word of the Lord came to Samuel: ^11 (A)“I regret^[a] that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and ^(B)has not performed my commandments.” And Samuel was angry, and he cried to the Lord all night. ¹² And Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning. And it was told Samuel, “Saul came to ^(C)Carmel, and behold, he set up a monument for himself and turned and passed on and went down to Gilgal.” ¹³ And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, ^(D)“Blessed be you to the Lord. I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” ¹⁴ And Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears and the lowing of the oxen that I hear?” ¹⁵ Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, ^(E)for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, and the rest we have devoted to destruction.” ¹⁶ Then Samuel said to Saul, “Stop! I will tell you what the Lord said to me this night.” And he said to him, “Speak.”

¹⁷ And Samuel said, ^(F)“Though you are little in your own eyes, are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. ¹⁸ And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, ‘Go, devote to destruction the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ ¹⁹ Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? ^(G)Why did you pounce on the spoil and do what was evil in the sight of the Lord?” ²⁰ And Saul said to Samuel, ^(H)“I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me. I have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and I have devoted the Amalekites to destruction. ^21 (I)But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the best of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” ²² And Samuel said,

²⁴ Saul said to Samuel, ^(O)“I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. ²⁵ Now therefore, please pardon my sin and ^(P)return with me that I may bow before the Lord.” ²⁶ And Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you. ^(Q)For you have rejected the word of the Lord, ^(R)and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.” ^27 (S)As Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of his robe, and it tore. ²⁸ And Samuel said to him, ^(T)“The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. ²⁹ And also the Glory of Israel ^(U)will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man, that he should have regret.” ³⁰ Then he said, “I have sinned; yet ^(V)honor me now before the elders of my people and before Israel, ^(W)and return with me, that I may bow before the Lord your God.” ³¹ So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul bowed before the Lord.

³² Then Samuel said, “Bring here to me Agag the king of the Amalekites.” And Agag came to him cheerfully.^[b] Agag said, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.” ³³ And Samuel said, ^(X)“As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be childless among women.” And Samuel hacked Agag to pieces before the Lord ^(Y)in Gilgal.

³⁴ Then Samuel went ^(Z)to Ramah, and Saul went up to his house in ^(AA)Gibeah of Saul. ^35 (AB)And Samuel did not see Saul again until the day of his death, ^(AC)but Samuel grieved over Saul. ^(AD)And the Lord regretted that he had made Saul king over Israel.

Faithless Israel Called to Repentance

⁶ The Lord said to me in the days of ^(A)King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, ^(B)how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there ^(C)played the whore? ⁷ And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous ^(D)sister Judah saw it. ⁸ She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, ^(E)I had sent her away with ^(F)a decree of divorce. ^(G)Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went ^(H)and played the whore. ⁹ Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with ^(I)stone and tree. ¹⁰ Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me ^(J)with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the Lord.”

¹¹ And the Lord said to me, ^(K)“Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. ¹² Go, and proclaim these words toward ^(L)the north, and say,

¹⁵ “‘And ^(T)I will give you shepherds after my own heart, ^(U)who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. ¹⁶ And when you have multiplied and been fruitful in the land, in those days, declares the Lord, they shall no more say, “The ark of the covenant of the Lord.” It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again. ¹⁷ At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, ^(V)and all nations shall gather to it, ^(W)to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart. ^18 (X)In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land ^(Y)of the north to ^(Z)the land that I gave your fathers for a heritage.

²⁴ “But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our fathers labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. ^25 (AI)Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us. For ^(AJ)we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”

The Faithful Have Vanished

To the choirmaster: according to The Sheminith.^[a] A Psalm of David.

How Long, O Lord?

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.

Institution of the Lord's Supper

^26 (A)Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and ^(B)after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; ^(C)this is my body.” ²⁷ And he took a cup, and when he ^(D)had given thanks he gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, ²⁸ for ^(E)this is my ^(F)blood of the^[a] covenant, which is poured out for ^(G)many ^(H)for the forgiveness of sins. ²⁹ I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you ^(I)in my Father's kingdom.”

Jesus Foretells Peter's Denial

^30 (J)And when they had sung a hymn, ^(K)they went out to ^(L)the Mount of Olives.

The Sin of Partiality

2 My brothers,^{[a] (A)}show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, ^(B)the Lord of glory. ² For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, ³ and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” ^(C)while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” ⁴ have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become ^(D)judges with evil thoughts? ⁵ Listen, my beloved brothers, ^(E)has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be ^(F)rich in faith and heirs of ^(G)the kingdom, ^(H)which he has promised to those who love him? ⁶ But you ^(I)have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who ^(J)drag you ^(K)into court? ⁷ Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable ^(L)name by which you were called?

⁸ If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, ^(M)“You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. ⁹ But if you ^(N)show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. ¹⁰ For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point ^(O)has become guilty of all of it. ¹¹ For he who said, ^(P)“Do not commit adultery,” also said, ^(Q)“Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. ¹² So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under ^(R)the law of liberty. ¹³ For ^(S)judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.