The Song of Deborah

5 Then Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang on that day,^(A)

And the land had rest forty years.^(W)

Elijah Flees from Jezebel

19 Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.^{(A) 2} Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.”^{(B) 3} Then he was afraid;^[a] he got up and fled for his life and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.

⁴ But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.”^{(C) 5} Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” ⁶ He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate and drank and lay down again. ⁷ The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you.” ⁸ He got up and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.^{(D) 9} At that place he came to a cave and spent the night there.

Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” ¹⁰ He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”^(E)

Elijah Meets God at Horeb

¹¹ He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind, and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake,^{(F) 12} and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. ¹³ When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”^{(G) 14} He answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”^{(H) 15} Then the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram.^{(I) 16} Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel, and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place.^{(J) 17} Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill, and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill.^{(K) 18} Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”^(L)

Healing the Sick in Gennesaret

⁵³ When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat.^{(A) 54} When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him ⁵⁵ and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. ⁵⁶ And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.^(B)

The Tradition of the Elders

7 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, ² they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. ³ (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands,^[a] thus observing the tradition of the elders,^{(C) 4} and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash,^[b] and there are also many other traditions that they observe: the washing of cups and pots and bronze kettles and beds.^[c])^{(D) 5} So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?”^{(E) 6} He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

⁸ “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”^(G)

⁹ Then he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!^{(H) 10} For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’^{(I) 11} But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban’ (that is, an offering to God^[d]),^{(J) 12} then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, ¹³ thus nullifying the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.”

¹⁴ Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: ¹⁵ there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”^[e]

¹⁷ When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. ¹⁸ He said to them, “So, are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, ¹⁹ since it enters not the heart but the stomach and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) ²⁰ And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. ²¹ For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: sexual immorality, theft, murder, ²² adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly. ²³ All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

Paul Speaks to the Ephesian Elders

¹⁷ From Miletus he sent a message to Ephesus, asking the elders of the church to meet him.^{(A) 18} When they came to him, he said to them:

“You yourselves know how I lived among you the entire time from the first day that I set foot in Asia,^{(B) 19} serving the Lord with all humility and with tears, enduring the trials that came to me through the plots of the Jews. ²⁰ I did not shrink from doing anything helpful, proclaiming the message to you and teaching you publicly and from house to house,^{(C) 21} as I testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus.^{[a](D) 22} And now, as a captive to the Spirit,^[b] I am on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there,^{(E) 23} except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and persecutions are waiting for me.^{(F) 24} But I do not count my life of any value to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the good news of God’s grace.^(G)

²⁵ “And now I know that none of you, among whom I have gone about proclaiming the kingdom, will ever see my face again.^{(H) 26} Therefore I declare to you this day that I am not responsible for the blood of any of you,^{(I) 27} for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God.^{(J) 28} Keep watch over yourselves and over all the flock, of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God^[c] that he obtained with the blood of his own Son.^{[d](K) 29} I know that after I have gone, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.^{(L) 30} Some even from your own group will come distorting the truth in order to entice the disciples to follow them. ³¹ Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone with tears.^{(M) 32} And now I commend you to God and to the message of his grace, a message that is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all who are sanctified.^{(N) 33} I coveted no one’s silver or gold or clothing.^{(O) 34} You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions.^{(P) 35} In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ ”^(Q)

³⁶ When he had finished speaking, he knelt down with them all and prayed.^{(R) 37} There was much weeping among them all; they embraced Paul and kissed him,^{(S) 38} grieving especially because of what he had said, that they would not see him again. Then they brought him to the ship.^(T)