Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

28 I plead with you to help me, Lord, for you are my Rock of safety. If you refuse to answer me, I might as well give up and die. ² Lord, I lift my hands to heaven^[a] and implore your help. Oh, listen to my cry.

³ Don’t punish me with all the wicked ones who speak so sweetly to their neighbors while planning to murder them. ⁴ Give them the punishment they so richly deserve! Measure it out to them in proportion to their wickedness; pay them back for all their evil deeds. ⁵ They care nothing for God or what he has done or what he has made; therefore God will dismantle them like old buildings, never to be rebuilt again.

⁶ Oh, praise the Lord, for he has listened to my pleadings! ⁷ He is my strength, my shield from every danger. I trusted in him, and he helped me. Joy rises in my heart until I burst out in songs of praise to him. ⁸ The Lord protects his people and gives victory to his anointed king.

⁹ Defend your people, Lord; defend and bless your chosen ones. Lead them like a shepherd and carry them forever in your arms.

14 One day when Samson was in Timnah he noticed a certain Philistine girl, ² and when he got home he told his father and mother that he wanted to marry her. ³ They objected strenuously.

“Why don’t you marry a Jewish girl?” they asked. “Why must you go and get a wife from these heathen Philistines? Isn’t there one girl among all the people of Israel you could marry?”

But Samson told his father, “She is the one I want. Get her for me.”

⁴ His father and mother didn’t realize that the Lord was behind the request, for God was setting a trap for the Philistines, who at that time were the rulers of Israel.

⁵ As Samson and his parents were going to Timnah, a young lion attacked Samson in the vineyards on the outskirts of the town. ⁶ At that moment the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him and since he had no weapon, he ripped the lion’s jaws apart and did it as easily as though it were a young goat! But he didn’t tell his father or mother about it. ⁷ Upon arriving at Timnah, he talked with the girl and found her to be just what he wanted, so the arrangements were made.^[a]

⁸ When he returned for the wedding, he turned off the path to look at the carcass of the lion. And he found a swarm of bees in it and some honey! ⁹ He took some of the honey with him, eating as he went, and gave some of it to his father and mother. But he didn’t tell them where he had gotten it.

^10-11 As his father was making final arrangements for the marriage, Samson threw a party for thirty young men of the village, as was the custom of the day. ¹² When Samson asked if they would like to hear a riddle, they replied that they would.

“If you solve my riddle during these seven days of the celebration,” he said, “I’ll give you thirty plain robes and thirty fancy robes. ¹³ But if you can’t solve it, then you must give the robes to me!”

“All right,” they agreed, “let’s hear it.”

¹⁴ This was his riddle: “Food came out of the eater, and sweetness from the strong!” Three days later they were still trying to figure it out.

¹⁵ On the fourth day they said to his new wife, “Get the answer from your husband, or we’ll burn down your father’s house with you in it. Were we invited to this party just to make us poor?”

¹⁶ So Samson’s wife broke down in tears before him and said, “You don’t love me at all; you hate me, for you have told a riddle to my people and haven’t told me the answer!”

“I haven’t even told it to my father or mother; why should I tell you?” he replied.

¹⁷ So she cried whenever she was with him and kept it up for the remainder of the celebration. At last, on the seventh day, he told her the answer and she, of course, gave the answer to the young men. ¹⁸ So before sunset of the seventh day they gave him their reply.

“What is sweeter than honey?” they asked, “and what is stronger than a lion?”

“If you hadn’t plowed with my heifer, you wouldn’t have found the answer to my riddle!” he retorted.

¹⁹ Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he went to the city of Ashkelon, killed thirty men, took their clothing, and gave it to the young men who had told him the answer to his riddle. But he was furious about it and abandoned his wife and went back home to live with his father and mother. ²⁰ So his wife was married instead to the fellow who had been best man at Samson’s wedding.

³ All my prayers for you are full of praise to God! ⁴ When I pray for you, my heart is full of joy ⁵ because of all your wonderful help in making known the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now. ⁶ And I am sure that God who began the good work within you will keep right on helping you grow in his grace until his task within you is finally finished on that day when Jesus Christ returns.

⁷ How natural it is that I should feel as I do about you, for you have a very special place in my heart. We have shared together the blessings of God, both when I was in prison and when I was out, defending the truth and telling others about Christ. ⁸ Only God knows how deep is my love and longing for you—with the tenderness of Jesus Christ. ⁹ My prayer for you is that you will overflow more and more with love for others, and at the same time keep on growing in spiritual knowledge and insight, ¹⁰ for I want you always to see clearly the difference between right and wrong, and to be inwardly clean, no one being able to criticize you from now until our Lord returns. ¹¹ May you always be doing those good, kind things that show you are a child of God, for this will bring much praise and glory to the Lord.

¹² And I want you to know this, dear brothers: Everything that has happened to me here has been a great boost in getting out the Good News concerning Christ. ¹³ For everyone around here, including all the soldiers over at the barracks, knows that I am in chains simply because I am a Christian. ¹⁴ And because of my imprisonment, many of the Christians here seem to have lost their fear of chains! Somehow my patience has encouraged them, and they have become more and more bold in telling others about Christ.