Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Adonai-Ro-eh
Psalm 23
1 A psalm of David.
Adonai is my shepherd, I shall not want.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
3 He restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for His Name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for You are with me:
Your rod and Your staff comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
You have anointed my head with oil, my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the House of Adonai forever.
Coming Pain of Exile
17 Pick up your bundle from the ground,
you who live under siege.
18 For thus says Adonai:
“I am about to hurl
the inhabitants out of the land.
At this time I will press hard on them
so that they will be found out.”
19 Oy to me because of my brokenness!
My wound is incurable.
Yet I said, “This is simply a sickness
and I must bear it.”
20 “My tent is destroyed
and all my ropes are snapped.
My children are gone from me
and are no more.
No one is left to stretch out my tent
or set up my tent curtains.
21 For the shepherds are stupid!
They have not sought Adonai.
Therefore they have not acted wisely
and all their flocks are scattered.”
22 Listen! The sound of a report is coming—
a great commotion out of the land of the north—
to make the cities of Judah desolate,
a haunt of jackals.
23 I know, Adonai, that a man’s way is not his own,
nor does man, as he walks, direct his steps.
24 Chasten me, Adonai, but with justice,
not in Your anger,
lest You reduce me to nothing.
25 Pour out Your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge You
and on the families that do not call on Your Name.
For they have devoured Jacob,
devoured and consumed him,
and destroyed his homeland.
An Unknown God in Athens
16 Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was aroused within him when he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he was debating in the synagogue with the Jewish people and the God-fearers, as well as in the marketplace every day with all who happened to be there. 18 Also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What’s this babbler trying to say?” while others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign deities”—because he was proclaiming the Good News of Yeshua and the resurrection. 19 So they took Paul to the Aereopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are talking about? 20 For you are bringing some strange things to our ears, so we want to know what these things mean.” 21 Now all the Athenians and foreigners visiting there used to pass their time doing nothing but telling or hearing something new.
22 So Paul stood in the middle of the Aereopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that in all ways you are very religious. 23 For while I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore what you worship without knowing, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth,[a] does not live in temples made by hands. [b] 25 Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything,[c] since He Himself gives to everyone life and breath and all things. [d] 26 From one He made every nation of men to live on the face of the earth, having set appointed times and the boundaries of their territory. [e] 27 They were to search for Him, and perhaps grope around for Him and find Him. Yet He is not far from each one of us, [f] 28 for ‘In Him we live and move and have our being.’
As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His offspring.’ [g] 29 Since we are His offspring, we ought not to suppose the Deity is like gold or silver or stone, an engraved image of human art and imagination. [h] 30 Although God overlooked the periods of ignorance, now He commands everyone everywhere to repent. 31 For He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness, through a Man whom He has appointed.[i] He has brought forth evidence of this to all men, by raising Him from the dead.”
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.