Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹⁶ As for me, I will call upon God, and the Lord will save me.

¹⁷ Evening and morning and at noon will I utter my complaint and moan and sigh, and He will hear my voice.

¹⁸ He has redeemed my life in peace from the battle that was against me [so that none came near me], for they were many who strove with me.

¹⁹ God will hear and humble them, even He Who abides of old—Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!—because in them there has been no change [of heart], and they do not fear, revere, and worship God.

²⁰ [My companion] has put forth his hands against those who were at peace with him; he has broken and profaned his agreement [of friendship and loyalty].

²¹ The words of his mouth were smoother than cream or butter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.

²² Cast your burden on the Lord [releasing the weight of it] and He will sustain you; He will never allow the [consistently] righteous to be moved (made to slip, fall, or fail).^(A)

²³ But You, O God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of destruction; men of blood and treachery shall not live out half their days. But I will trust in, lean on, and confidently rely on You.

5 On the third day [of the fast] Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the royal or inner court of the king’s palace opposite his [throne room]. The king was sitting on his throne, facing the main entrance of the palace.

² And when the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, she obtained favor in his sight, and he held out to [her] the golden scepter that was in his hand. So Esther drew near and touched the tip of the scepter.

³ Then the king said to her, What will you have, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you, even to the half of the kingdom.

⁴ And Esther said, If it seems good to the king, let the king and Haman come this day to the dinner that I have prepared for the king.

⁵ Then the king said, Cause Haman to come quickly, that what Esther has said may be done.

⁶ So the king and Haman came to the dinner that Esther had prepared.

⁷ And during the serving of wine, the king said to Esther, What is your petition? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of the kingdom, it shall be performed.

⁸ Then Esther said, My petition and my request is: If I have found favor in the sight of the king and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and to perform my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the dinner that I shall prepare for them; and I will do tomorrow as the king has said.

⁹ Haman went away that day joyful and elated in heart. But when he saw Mordecai at the king’s gate refusing to stand up or show fear before him, he was filled with wrath against Mordecai.

¹⁰ Nevertheless, Haman restrained himself and went home. There he sent and called for his friends and Zeresh his wife.

¹¹ And Haman recounted to them the glory of his riches, the abundance of his [ten] sons, all the things in which the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king.

¹² Haman added, Yes, and today Queen Esther did not let any man come with the king to the dinner she had prepared but myself; and tomorrow also I am invited by her together with the king.

¹³ Yet all this benefits me nothing as long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.

¹⁴ Then Zeresh his wife and all his friends said to him, Let a gallows be made, fifty cubits [seventy-five feet] high, and in the morning speak to the king, that Mordecai may be hanged on it; then you go in merrily with the king to the dinner. And the thing pleased Haman, and he caused the gallows to be made.

¹⁶ Therefore let no one sit in judgment on you in matters of food and drink, or with regard to a feast day or a New Moon or a Sabbath.

¹⁷ Such [things] are only the shadow of things that are to come, and they have only a symbolic value. But the reality (the substance, the solid fact of what is foreshadowed, the body of it) belongs to Christ.

¹⁸ Let no one defraud you by acting as an umpire and declaring you unworthy and disqualifying you for the prize, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, taking his stand on visions [he claims] he has seen, vainly puffed up by his sensuous notions and inflated by his unspiritual thoughts and fleshly conceit,

¹⁹ And not holding fast to the Head, from Whom the entire body, supplied and knit together by means of its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

²⁰ If then you have died with Christ to material ways of looking at things and have escaped from the world’s crude and elemental notions and teachings of externalism, why do you live as if you still belong to the world? [Why do you submit to rules and regulations?—such as]

²¹ Do not handle [this], Do not taste [that], Do not even touch [them],

²² Referring to things all of which perish with being used. To do this is to follow human precepts and doctrines.^(A)

²³ Such [practices] have indeed the outward appearance [that popularly passes] for wisdom, in promoting self-imposed rigor of devotion and delight in self-humiliation and severity of discipline of the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh (the lower nature). [Instead, they do not honor God but serve only to indulge the flesh.]

3 If then you have been raised with Christ [to a new life, thus sharing His resurrection from the dead], aim at and seek the [rich, eternal treasures] that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.^(B)