Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
78 (0) A maskil of Asaf:
(1) Listen, my people, to my teaching;
turn your ears to the words from my mouth.
2 I will speak to you in parables
and explain mysteries from days of old.
3 The things which we have heard and known,
and which our fathers told us
4 we will not hide from their descendants;
we will tell the generation to come
the praises of Adonai and his strength,
the wonders that he has performed.
52 But his own people he led out like sheep,
guiding them like a flock in the desert.
53 He led them safely, and they weren’t afraid,
even when the sea overwhelmed their foes.
54 He brought them to his holy land,
to the hill-country won by his right hand.
55 He expelled nations before them,
apportioned them property to inherit
and made Isra’el’s tribes live in their tents.
56 Yet they tested El ‘Elyon
and rebelled against him,
refusing to obey his instructions.
57 They turned away and were faithless, like their fathers;
they were unreliable, like a bow without tension.
58 They provoked him with their high places
and made him jealous with their idols.
59 God heard, and he was angry;
he came to detest Isra’el completely.
60 He abandoned the tabernacle at Shiloh,
the tent he had made where he could live among people.
61 He gave his strength into exile,
his pride to the power of the foe.
62 He gave his people over to the sword
and grew angry with his own heritage.
63 Fire consumed their young men,
their virgins had no wedding-song,
64 their cohanim fell by the sword,
and their widows could not weep.
65 Then Adonai awoke, as if from sleep,
like a warrior shouting for joy from wine.
66 He struck his foes, driving them back
and putting them to perpetual shame.
67 Rejecting the tents of Yosef
and passing over the tribe of Efrayim,
68 he chose the tribe of Y’hudah,
Mount Tziyon, which he loved.
69 He built his sanctuary like the heights;
like the earth, he made it to last forever.
70 He chose David to be his servant,
taking him from the sheep-yards;
71 from tending nursing ewes he brought him
to shepherd Ya‘akov his people,
Isra’el his heritage.
72 With upright heart he shepherded them
and guided them with skillful hands.
21 (20:42b) So David got up and left, and Y’honatan went back to the city.
2 (1) David went to see Achimelekh the cohen in Nov. Achimelekh came trembling to meet David and asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?” 3 (2) David said to Achimelekh the cohen, “The king has sent me on a mission and told me not to let anyone know its purpose or what I’ve been ordered to do. I’ve arranged a place where the guards are to meet me. 4 (3) Now, what do you have on hand? If you can spare five loaves of bread, give them to me, or whatever there is.” 5 (4) The cohen answered David, “I don’t have any regular bread; however, there is consecrated bread — but only if the guards have abstained from women. 6 (5) David answered the cohen, “Of course women have been kept away from us, as on previous campaigns. Whenever I go out on campaign, the men’s gear is clean, even if it’s an ordinary trip. How much more, then, today, when they will be putting something consecrated in their packs!”
5 After this, there was a Judean festival; and Yeshua went up to Yerushalayim. 2 In Yerushalayim, by the Sheep Gate, is a pool called in Aramaic, Beit-Zata, 3 in which lay a crowd of invalids — blind, lame, crippled. 4 [a] 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 Yeshua, seeing this man and knowing that he had been there a long time, said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7 The sick man answered, “I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is disturbed; and while I’m trying to get there, someone goes in ahead of me.” 8 Yeshua said to him, “Get up, pick up your mat and walk!” 9 Immediately the man was healed, and he picked up his mat and walked.
Now that day was Shabbat, 10 so the Judeans said to the man who had been healed, “It’s Shabbat! It’s against Torah for you to carry your mat!” 11 But he answered them, “The man who healed me — he’s the one who told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who told you to pick it up and walk?” 13 But the man who had been healed didn’t know who it was, because Yeshua had slipped away into the crowd.
14 Afterwards Yeshua found him in the Temple court and said to him, “See, you are well! Now stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you!” 15 The man went off and told the Judeans it was Yeshua who had healed him; 16 and on account of this, the Judeans began harassing Yeshua because he did these things on Shabbat.
17 But he answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I too am working.” 18 This answer made the Judeans all the more intent on killing him — not only was he breaking Shabbat; but also, by saying that God was his own Father, he was claiming equality with God.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.