Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
7 Hear, O Lord, when I cry with my voice!
Have mercy also upon me, and answer me.
8 When You said, “Seek My face,”
My heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”
9 (A)Do not hide Your face from me;
Do not turn Your servant away in anger;
You have been my help;
Do not leave me nor forsake me,
O God of my salvation.
10 (B)When my father and my mother forsake me,
Then the Lord will take care of me.
11 (C)Teach me Your way, O Lord,
And lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies.
12 Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries;
For (D)false witnesses have risen against me,
And such as breathe out violence.
13 I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of the Lord
(E)In the land of the living.
Gideon
11 Now the Angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash (A)the Abiezrite, while his son (B)Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the (C)Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, “The Lord is (D)with you, you mighty man of valor!”
13 Gideon said to Him, “O [a]my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And (E)where are all His miracles (F)which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has (G)forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites.”
14 Then the Lord turned to him and said, (H)“Go in this might of yours, and you shall save Israel from the hand of the Midianites. (I)Have I not sent you?”
15 So he said to Him, “O [b]my Lord, how can I save Israel? Indeed (J)my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
16 And the Lord said to him, (K)“Surely I will be with you, and you shall [c]defeat the Midianites as one man.”
17 Then he said to Him, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then (L)show me a sign that it is You who talk with me. 18 (M)Do not depart from here, I pray, until I come to You and bring out my offering and set it before You.”
And He said, “I will wait until you come back.”
19 (N)So Gideon went in and prepared a young goat, and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot; and he brought them out to Him under the terebinth tree and presented them. 20 The Angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and (O)lay them on this rock, and (P)pour out the broth.” And he did so.
21 Then the Angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in His hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and (Q)fire rose out of the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. And the Angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.
22 Now Gideon (R)perceived that He was the Angel of the Lord. So Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord God! (S)For I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face.”
23 Then the Lord said to him, (T)“Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die.” 24 So Gideon built an altar there to the Lord, and called it [d]The-Lord-Is-Peace. To this day it is still (U)in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.
6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7 Therefore do not be (A)partakers with them.
Walk in Light
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are (B)light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for (C)the fruit of the [a]Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), 10 (D)finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. 11 And have (E)no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather [b]expose them. 12 (F)For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. 13 But (G)all things that are [c]exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. 14 Therefore He says:
(H)“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.”
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.