Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Hallelujah, God helps weak people^[a]

Jacob's family

30 Rachel now knew that she could not give birth to any children for Jacob. So she became jealous of her sister. Rachel said to Jacob, ‘Please give me children. If not, I will die.’^{[a] 2} Jacob became angry with Rachel. He said, ‘Am I God? God has stopped you from giving birth to children!’ ³ Rachel said, ‘Take my servant Bilhah and have sex with her. Then she can have children on my behalf. Through her, I can have a family.’^[b]

⁴ So Rachel gave her servant Bilhah to Jacob to become his wife. ⁵ Bilhah became pregnant and she gave birth to a son for Jacob. ⁶ Rachel said, ‘God has shown that I am right. He has listened to me and he has given a son to me.’ Because of this, she called the boy Dan. ⁷ Rachel's servant Bilhah became pregnant again. She gave birth to another son for Jacob. ⁸ Rachel said, ‘I have fought with my sister and I have won.’ She called this son Naphtali.

⁹ Leah saw that she had stopped having children. So she gave her servant Zilpah to Jacob as a wife. ¹⁰ Zilpah became pregnant and she gave birth to a son for Jacob. ¹¹ Leah said, ‘This is very good.’ She called the boy Gad. ¹² Leah's servant Zilpah gave Jacob another son. ¹³ Leah said, ‘I am very happy! Women will call me happy.’ So she called this boy Asher.

¹⁴ It was the time for the harvest of wheat. Reuben went out and he found some mandrake plants in a field. He took them to his mother, Leah. Rachel said to Leah, ‘Please give me some of the mandrakes that your son gave to you.’^{[c] 15} But Leah said to Rachel, ‘You took my husband from me. That was bad enough! Now you want to take my son's mandrakes too!’ Rachel said, ‘OK. If you give me some of your son's mandrakes, Jacob can sleep with you tonight.’

¹⁶ In the evening, Jacob came in from the fields. Leah went out to meet him. She said, ‘You must sleep with me tonight. I have paid for you with my son's mandrakes.’ So Jacob slept with Leah that night. ¹⁷ God listened to Leah and she became pregnant again. She gave birth to a fifth son for Jacob. ¹⁸ Leah said, ‘God has helped me because I gave my servant to Jacob as a wife.’ She called her son Issachar.

¹⁹ Leah became pregnant again and she gave Jacob a sixth son. ²⁰ Leah said, ‘God has given me this valuable gift. Now my husband will respect me because I have given him six sons.’ She called this son Zebulun.

²¹ After some time, Leah became pregnant again. She gave birth to a daughter. She called her daughter Dinah.

²² Then God decided to help Rachel. He listened to her and he let her become pregnant. ²³ She became pregnant and she gave birth to a son. Rachel said, ‘I am not ashamed any longer, because God has given me a son.’ ²⁴ Rachel called her son Joseph. She said, ‘I pray that the Lord will give me another son.’

God has prepared great things for his people

¹⁸ During this time now, we have troubles and pain. But I am sure that these troubles are not really very great. One day God will show us all the great things he has prepared for us. That will make the troubles that we have now seem very small. ¹⁹ The whole universe that God has made now waits for something great to happen. Everything is waiting with hope to find out who God's children really are.

²⁰ God has caused everything in the universe to lose its purpose. It did not choose to be like that. It was God who decided that it should be like that. Then it could hope for something better in a future time. ²¹ At that time, the universe will not continue to become worse and worse, as it does now. It will become free from that power. It will be free to enjoy great things from God, as God's children are also free.

²² We know that everything in the universe is still in great pain now. Everything cries together in pain, like a woman who is ready to have a baby. ²³ It is the same for us who are believers. We have received God's Spirit as the first of his gifts to us, but we also cry inside ourselves. We are waiting for the time when God will finish his great work. Then we will belong to him completely as his children. Our bodies will be free from the power of sin.

²⁴ Ever since God saved us, we have continued to wait for this to happen. One day, we will receive what we have hoped for. Then we will not need to hope for it any more. Nobody continues to hope for something that he has already. ²⁵ But we continue to hope for what we do not yet see. And so, we wait for it patiently.

²⁶ God's Spirit also helps us to do this. Because we are weak, we do not know how we ought to pray. But God's Spirit himself prays for us. He cries to God on our behalf in a way that nobody could say with words. ²⁷ God sees deep inside us, and he knows our thoughts. He understands what is in the mind of his Spirit. When the Holy Spirit prays on behalf of God's people, he prays as God wants him to pray.

²⁸ We know that God works to help those people who love him. He uses everything that happens to them to bring something good. He does this for those people that he has chosen to serve him. ²⁹ God already had those people in his thoughts from the beginning. He decided that they should become like his Son. So then, his Son would have many younger brothers and sisters. ³⁰ God had already chosen those people to be his children. Because of that, he called them to come to him. He accepted those people as right with himself. And those that he accepted, he also caused them to become great.