Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
17 But one day the woman’s son became sick and died.
18 “O man of God,” she cried, “what have you done to me? Have you come here to punish my sins by killing my son?”
19 “Give him to me,” Elijah replied. And he took the boy’s body from her and carried it upstairs to the guest room where he lived, and laid the body on his bed, 20 and then cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, why have you killed the son of this widow with whom I am staying?”
21 And he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried out to the Lord, “O Lord my God, please let this child’s spirit return to him.”
22 And the Lord heard Elijah’s prayer; and the spirit of the child returned, and he became alive again! 23 Then Elijah took him downstairs and gave him to his mother.
“See! He’s alive!” he beamed.
24 “Now I know for sure that you are a prophet,” she told him afterward,[a] “and that whatever you say is from the Lord!”
30 I will praise you, Lord, for you have saved me from my enemies. You refuse to let them triumph over me. 2 O Lord my God, I pleaded with you, and you gave me my health again. 3 You brought me back from the brink of the grave, from death itself, and here I am alive!
4 Oh, sing to him you saints of his; give thanks to his holy name. 5 His anger lasts a moment; his favor lasts for life! Weeping may go on all night, but in the morning there is joy.
6-7 In my prosperity I said, “This is forever; nothing can stop me now! The Lord has shown me his favor. He has made me steady as a mountain.” Then, Lord, you turned your face away from me and cut off your river of blessings.[a] Suddenly my courage was gone; I was terrified and panic-stricken. 8 I cried to you, O Lord; oh, how I pled: 9 “What will you gain, O Lord, from killing me? How can I praise you then to all my friends? How can my dust in the grave speak out and tell the world about your faithfulness? 10 Hear me, Lord; oh, have pity and help me.” 11 Then he turned my sorrow into joy! He took away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy 12 so that I might sing glad praises to the Lord instead of lying in silence in the grave. O Lord my God, I will keep on thanking you forever!
11 Dear friends, I solemnly swear that the way to heaven that I preach is not based on some mere human whim or dream. 12 For my message comes from no less a person than Jesus Christ himself, who told me what to say. No one else has taught me.
13 You know what I was like when I followed the Jewish religion—how I went after the Christians mercilessly, hunting them down and doing my best to get rid of them all. 14 I was one of the most religious Jews of my own age in the whole country and tried as hard as I possibly could to follow all the old, traditional rules of my religion.
15 But then something happened! For even before I was born, God had chosen me to be his and called me—what kindness and grace— 16 to reveal his Son within me so that I could go to the Gentiles and show them the Good News about Jesus.
When all this happened to me I didn’t go at once and talk it over with anyone else; 17 I didn’t go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were apostles before I was. No, I went away into the deserts of Arabia and then came back to the city of Damascus. 18 It was not until three years later that I finally went to Jerusalem for a visit with Peter and stayed there with him for fifteen days. 19 And the only other apostle I met at that time was James, our Lord’s brother. 20 (Listen to what I am saying, for I am telling you this in the very presence of God. This is exactly what happened—I am not lying to you.) 21 Then after this visit I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22 And still the Christians in Judea didn’t even know what I looked like. 23 All they knew was what people were saying, that “our former enemy is now preaching the very faith he tried to wreck.” 24 And they gave glory to God because of me.
11 Not long afterwards Jesus went with his disciples to the village of Nain, with the usual great crowd at his heels. 12 A funeral procession was coming out as he approached the village gate. The boy who had died was the only son of his widowed mother, and many mourners from the village were with her.
13 When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with sympathy. “Don’t cry!” he said. 14 Then he walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. “Laddie,” he said, “come back to life again.”
15 Then the boy sat up and began to talk to those around him! And Jesus gave him back to his mother.
16 A great fear swept the crowd, and they exclaimed with praises to God, “A mighty prophet has risen among us,” and, “We have seen the hand of God at work today.”
17 The report of what he did that day raced from end to end of Judea and even out across the borders.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.