Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

David wrote this prayer.

A prayer for help

⁵ Perhaps two brothers live together in the same place. One of the brothers may die before he has any son. If that happens, his widow must not marry anyone who does not belong to the family. Instead, the other brother must marry her. That is the right thing for him to do for his dead brother. ⁶ The first son that the widow gives birth to will be the son of her first husband. His family's name will not disappear from Israel.

⁷ But the man may not want to marry his brother's widow. If so, this is what the widow must do: She must go to the leaders when they meet at the town gate. She must say, ‘My dead husband's brother refuses to do his duty for me. He does not want his brother to have any descendants so that his family's name will continue.’

⁸ Then the town's leaders must call the man to come to them. They must talk to him. Perhaps he will continue to say, ‘I do not want to marry her!’

⁹ If that happens, his brother's widow must go near him, as the leaders watch. She must pull off one of his shoes and then she must spit in his face. She must say, ‘This is what we do to a man who will not give descendants to his dead brother!’ ¹⁰ After that, people will call that man's family, ‘the family of the man who lost his shoe.’

The people in the crowd become very angry with Paul

²² The people listened carefully to Paul until he spoke about the Gentiles. Then they began to shout loudly, ‘Take him away! Kill him! It is not right that he should live any longer!’

²³ While they were shouting this, they were taking off their coats. They also threw dirt from the ground up into the air.^[a]

²⁴ The leader of the soldiers said to his men, ‘Take this man into our building. Then hit him with whips. We must find out what he has done. He must tell us why the Jews are shouting so loudly against him.’^[b]

²⁵ So the soldiers tied Paul's arms and they were ready to hit him. But Paul spoke to the soldiers' officer who stood near to him. He said, ‘I am a citizen of Rome. So it is not right for you to hit me like that. No judge has agreed that I have done anything wrong.’

²⁶ The officer heard what Paul said. So he went to the leader of the soldiers and he said, ‘That man is a citizen of Rome! Be careful what you do to him!’

²⁷ So the soldiers' leader went to speak to Paul. He asked him, ‘Tell me. Are you really a citizen of Rome?’

Paul answered, ‘Yes, I am.’

²⁸ The soldiers' leader said, ‘I paid a lot of money to the government so that I could become a citizen of Rome.’

Paul replied, ‘But I was already a citizen of Rome when I was born.’

²⁹ Immediately, the men who wanted to hit Paul with whips moved away from him. The leader of the soldiers was also very afraid. He had tied chains around Paul's arms and legs. He knew that he should not have done that to a citizen of Rome.^[c]

³⁰ The soldiers' leader wanted to find the reason why the Jews had said bad things against Paul. He wanted to know what was really true. So the next day, he told his soldiers to remove the chains from Paul. He sent a message to the most important priest and to all the group of Jewish leaders. He told them to meet together with him. Then he took Paul to their meeting. He made Paul stand in front of them.

Paul speaks to the meeting of Jewish leaders

23 Paul looked at the group of Jewish leaders and he said to them, ‘My Jewish friends, God knows that I have nothing to be ashamed about today. I have always respected God's Laws.’ ² The most important priest, who was called Ananias, heard Paul's words. He said to the men who were near Paul, ‘Hit that man on his mouth!’ ³ Paul said to him, ‘God will certainly hit you! You are a hypocrite!^[d] You are sitting there and you are judging me. You are asking if I obey the Law of God. But you yourself do not obey the Law! You should not have said, “Hit that man!” ’

⁴ The men who were standing near Paul said to him, ‘You must not say bad things against our most important priest!’

⁵ Paul replied, ‘My brothers, I did not know that this man is the most important priest.^[e] Our Jewish law says, “Do not say bad things against the man who rules your people.” So I should not have said anything bad against him.’

⁶ Then Paul saw that there were some Sadducees and also some Pharisees in the meeting. So he shouted out to the whole group of Jewish leaders, ‘My brothers, I am a Pharisee! My father was also a Pharisee. I believe that dead people will certainly rise and they will live again. That is the reason why you are judging me today.’

⁷ As soon as Paul said that, the Pharisees and Sadducees began to argue with each other. People in the group thought different things about Paul. ⁸ (The Sadducees do not believe that dead people will live again. They do not believe that there are angels or spirits. But the Pharisees believe in all these things.)

⁹ The Sadducees and the Pharisees began to shout louder and louder against each other. There were some teachers of God's Law who were in the group of Pharisees. They stood up in the meeting and they said, ‘We do not believe that this man has done anything wrong. What he says may be true. A spirit or an angel may have spoken to him.’

¹⁰ The two groups argued more and more strongly. The leader of the soldiers thought that the people there might hurt Paul badly. So he said to his soldiers, ‘Go down into the group and take Paul away from them. Take him back with you into our strong building.’

¹¹ The next night, the Lord Jesus came and he stood near Paul. He said to Paul, ‘Do not be afraid! You have told people here in Jerusalem about me. You must also do the same thing in Rome.’