Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

David wrote this song to ask God not to forget him.

Lord, please remember me^[a]

God will take care of his people

¹⁸ So the Lord is waiting for the right time to be kind to you. He is ready to show his great love for you. The Lord God does what is right and fair. Everyone who waits for him to come and help them is a happy person!

¹⁹ People will live in Zion again. You people who live in Jerusalem will not weep any longer. When you call to the Lord for help, he will be kind to you. When he hears you, he will answer you.

²⁰ The Lord God has given trouble to you, like bread that you must eat. He has given pain to you, as water that you must drink. But he will no longer hide himself from you. He will be with you, to teach you and to be your guide. ²¹ You will hear his voice behind you. When you turn off the path, to the right or to the left, it will say, ‘This is the right way. Walk in it.’ ²² Then you will destroy your idols and your images of false gods. You used silver or gold to make them beautiful. But now you will throw them away like a piece of dirty cloth. You will tell them, ‘Go away!’

²³ The Lord will send rain for the seeds that you have planted. The ground will give you plenty of good food. At that time, your cows will have lots of grass to eat in wide fields. ²⁴ The bulls and the donkeys that work on your farms will eat the best food. They will eat the same grain that people eat. ²⁵ Streams of water will pour down from every tall mountain and every high hill. That will happen at the time when your enemies are destroyed. Their strong towers will fall down. ²⁶ At that time, the moon will shine as bright as the sun. Light from the sun will be seven times brighter. It will be like the light of seven days at the same time! At that time, the Lord will make the wounds of his people better. He has hurt them, but now he will make them better.

This is what happened in Lystra

⁸ There was a man who lived in Lystra. His feet had been weak since he was born. So he had never been able to walk. ⁹ While Paul was speaking God's message, this man listened to him. Paul looked at him carefully. He could see that the man believed in Jesus. The man believed that God could make him well. ¹⁰ So Paul said to him loudly, ‘Stand up on your feet!’ Immediately the man jumped up and he began to walk about.

¹¹ The crowd saw what Paul had done. They began to shout in their own language that the people of Lycaonia spoke. ‘The gods have become like men and they have come down from the sky to us,’ they said. ¹² They called Barnabas ‘Zeus’. They called Paul ‘Hermes’, because he was the one who spoke the message to the people.^[a]

¹³ The temple of Zeus was very near to the town. The priest who worked there brought bulls and flowers to the town gate. Many people had come together in that place. The priest and the crowd wanted to kill the animals as sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas.^[b]

¹⁴ Paul and Barnabas heard what the people wanted to do. So they tore their own clothes to show that they were very upset. They ran into the middle of the crowd, ¹⁵ and they shouted, ‘Stop! You people should not do this. We are only men like you. We are not gods. We came here to tell you some good news about the great God. You must stop worshipping these gods who are really nothing. Instead worship the God who lives. He made the sky, the earth and the sea. He also made everything that is in them.

¹⁶ In past times, God let people everywhere do what they wanted to do. ¹⁷ But God has showed everybody very clearly what he is like. He has showed you that he is kind. He causes the rain to fall from the sky. He causes the plants to give you food at the right time each year. He gives you plenty of food to eat. In these ways he makes you very happy.’

¹⁸ Even when Paul had said all this, the people still wanted to offer sacrifices to him and Barnabas. Finally Paul and Barnabas were able to stop them.