The Call of Gideon

¹¹ Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash ^(A)the Abiezrite, while his son ^(B)Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. ¹² And ^(C)the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, ^(D)“The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” ¹³ And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are ^(E)all his wonderful deeds ^(F)that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” ¹⁴ And the Lord^[a] turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; ^(G)do not I send you?” ¹⁵ And he said to him, ^(H)“Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, ^(I)my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.” ¹⁶ And the Lord said to him, ^(J)“But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” ¹⁷ And he said to him, ^(K)“If now I have found favor in your eyes, then ^(L)show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. ¹⁸ Please ^(M)do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay till you return.”

¹⁹ So Gideon went into his house ^(N)and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an ephah^[b] of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the terebinth and presented them. ²⁰ And the angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them ^(O)on this rock, and ^(P)pour the broth over them.” And he did so. ²¹ Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes. ^(Q)And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. ²² Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. And Gideon said, ^(R)“Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” ²³ But the Lord said to him, ^(S)“Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.” ²⁴ Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it, ^(T)The Lord Is Peace. To this day it still stands at ^(U)Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.

Revive Us Again

To the choirmaster. A Psalm of ^(A)the Sons of Korah.

The Resurrection of Christ

15 Now I would remind you, brothers,^[a] of the gospel ^(A)I preached to you, which you received, ^(B)in which you stand, ² and by which ^(C)you are being saved, if you ^(D)hold fast to the word I preached to you—^(E)unless you believed in vain.

³ For ^(F)I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died ^(G)for our sins ^(H)in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised ^(I)on the third day ^(J)in accordance with the Scriptures, ⁵ and that ^(K)he appeared to Cephas, then ^(L)to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to ^(M)James, then ^(N)to all the apostles. ⁸ Last of all, as to one untimely born, ^(O)he appeared also to me. ⁹ For ^(P)I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because ^(Q)I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, ^(R)I worked harder than any of them, ^(S)though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. ¹¹ Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.

Jesus Calls the First Disciples

5 On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by ^(A)the lake of Gennesaret, ^2 (B)and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were ^(C)washing their nets. ³ Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And ^(D)he sat down and taught the people from the boat. ⁴ And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ^(E)“Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” ⁵ And Simon answered, “Master, ^(F)we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” ⁶ And when they had done this, ^(G)they enclosed a large number of fish, and ^(H)their nets were breaking. ⁷ They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. ^(I)And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. ⁸ But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, ^(J)“Depart from me, for ^(K)I am a sinful man, O Lord.” ⁹ For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken, ¹⁰ and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”^{[a] 11} And when they had brought their boats to land, ^(L)they left everything and followed him.