Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
To the director: With instruments. A maskil of David written when the Ziphites went to Saul and told him, “We think David is hiding among our people.”
54 God, use your power and save me.
Use your great power to set me free.[a]
2 God, listen to my prayer.
Listen to what I say.
3 Strangers who don’t even think about God have turned against me.
Those powerful men are trying to kill me. Selah
4 Look, my God will help me.
My Lord will support me.
5 He will punish the people who turned against me.
God, be faithful to me and destroy them.
6 Lord, I will give freewill offerings to you.
I will praise your good name.
7 You saved me from all my troubles.
I saw my enemies defeated.
24 Then the prophet Zedekiah went to Micaiah and hit him on the face. Zedekiah said, “How is it that the Spirit of the Lord left me to speak through you?”
25 Micaiah answered, “Look, what I said will happen! And you will see it one day when you are in a secret room somewhere hiding.”
26 Then King Ahab ordered one of his officers to arrest Micaiah. Ahab said, “Arrest him and take him to Amon the governor of the city and prince Joash. 27 Tell them to put Micaiah in prison. Give him nothing but bread and water to eat. Keep him there until I come home from the battle.”
28 Micaiah said, “Listen to me, everyone! Ahab, if you come back alive from the battle, the Lord has not spoken through me.”
The Battle at Ramoth Gilead
29 King Ahab of Israel and King Jehoshaphat of Judah went to fight the Arameans at Ramoth Gilead. 30 Ahab said to Jehoshaphat, “Disguise yourself when you go into battle, but wear your own clothes. And I will disguise myself.” The king of Israel went into battle dressed like an ordinary soldier.
31 The king of Aram had 32 chariot commanders. He gave them this command, “Don’t go after anyone except the king of Israel, no matter how important they are.” 32 When the commanders saw King Jehoshaphat, they thought he was the king of Israel, and so they went to kill him. Jehoshaphat started shouting. 33 When the commanders saw that he was not King Ahab, they stopped chasing him.
34 Then a soldier in the distance pulled back as far as he could on his bow and shot an arrow into the air. The arrow happened to hit the king of Israel in a small hole where his armor was fastened together. King Ahab said to his chariot driver, “I’ve been hit! Turn the chariot around and take me off the battlefield!”
35 The armies continued to fight while King Ahab was propped up in his chariot. He was leaning against the sides of the chariot, looking out toward the Arameans. His blood ran down onto the floor of the chariot. Later in the evening, he died. 36 At sunset all the Israelites cheered when they were told to go home. So they all went back to their hometowns.
37 And that is how King Ahab died. Some men carried his body to Samaria and buried him there. 38 They took his chariot to the large pool in Samaria to clean it. The dogs licked up Ahab’s blood while the prostitutes washed the chariot. This happened just as the Lord said it would.
39 The rest of what King Ahab did during the time he ruled is written in the book, The History of the Kings of Israel. That book tells about all the cities he built and about all the ivory that he used to decorate his palace. 40 Ahab died and was buried with his ancestors. His son Ahaziah became the next king after him.
25 I want you to understand this secret truth, brothers and sisters. This truth will help you understand that you don’t know everything. The truth is this: Part of Israel has been made stubborn, but that will change when enough non-Jewish people have come to God. 26 And that is how all Israel will be saved. The Scriptures say,
“The Savior will come from Zion;
he will take away all evil from the family of Jacob.
27 And I will make this agreement with those people
when I take away their sins.” (A)
28 The Jews refuse to accept the Good News, so they are God’s enemies. This has happened to help you who are not Jews. But they are still God’s chosen people, and he loves them because of the promises he made to their ancestors. 29 God never changes his mind about the people he calls. He never decides to take back the blessings he has given them. 30 At one time you refused to obey God. But now you have received mercy, because the Jews refused to obey. 31 And now they are the ones who refuse to obey, because God showed mercy to you. But this happened so that they can also receive mercy from him. 32 All people have refused to obey God. And he has put them all together as people who don’t obey him so that he can show mercy to everyone.
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International