Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Prayer for Deliverance from Pursuers

A maskil of David.

When he was in the cave. A prayer.^[a]

A Lament and Call to Repentance

5 Hear this word that I am going to intone over you as a lament, O house of Israel! ² Virgin Israel has fallen and will not rise again. She is deserted on her land; there is no one to raise her up. ³ For thus says my Lord Yahweh, “The city that marches out with a thousand will only have a hundred left. And the one that marches out with a hundred will only have ten left for the house of Israel.” ⁴ For thus says Yahweh to the house of Israel, “Seek me so that you may live.” ⁵ But do not seek Bethel or go to Gilgal or cross over to Beersheba, for Gilgal will certainly go into exile and Bethel will come to disaster.” ⁶ Seek Yahweh so that you may live, so that he will not break out like a fire against the house of Joseph! And it will devour, with none to quench^[a] it for Bethel. ⁷ Ah, you who turn justice into wormwood and hurl righteousness to the ground! ⁸ The one who made the Pleiades and Orion and who turns deep darkness into the morning and darkens day into night, the one who calls for the waters of the sea and pours them out on the surface of the earth, Yahweh is his name! ⁹ The one who makes destruction flash upon the fierce, so that^[b] destruction comes upon the fortification.

Paul Arrested in the Temple Courts

²⁷ But when the seven days were about to be completed, the Jews from Asia^[a] who had seen him in the temple courts^[b] stirred up the whole crowd and laid hands on him, ²⁸ shouting, “Israelite men, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place! And furthermore he also brought Greeks into the temple, and has defiled this holy place!” ²⁹ (For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him, whom they thought that Paul had brought into the temple.) ³⁰ And the whole city was stirred up, and the people came running together, and they seized Paul and^[c] dragged him outside of the temple courts,^[d] and immediately the doors were shut.

³¹ And as they^[e] were seeking to kill him, a report came up to the military tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. ³² He^[f] immediately took along soldiers and centurions and^[g] ran down to them. And when^[h] they saw the military tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. ³³ Then the military tribune came up and^[i] arrested him and ordered him^[j] to be bound with two chains, and inquired who he was and what it was that he had done. ³⁴ But some in the crowd were shouting one thing and others another, and because^[k] he was not able to find out the truth on account of the commotion, he gave orders to bring him into the barracks.^{[l] 35} And when he came to the steps, it happened that he had to be carried by the soldiers on account of the violence of the crowd, ³⁶ for the crowd of people was following them,^[m] shouting, “Away with him!”

Paul Permitted to Address the Crowd

³⁷ And as he^[n] was about to be brought into the barracks,^[o] Paul said to the military tribune, “Is it permitted for me to say something to you?” And he said, “Do you know Greek? ³⁸ Then you are not the Egyptian who before these days raised a revolt and led out into the wilderness the four thousand men of the Assassins?”^{[p] 39} But Paul said, “I am a Jewish man from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no unimportant city. Now I ask you, allow me to speak to the people.”