Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
The Lord Our Shepherd[a]
23 The Lord is my shepherd;
I have everything I need.
2 (A)He lets me rest in fields of green grass
and leads me to quiet pools of fresh water.
3 He gives me new strength.
He guides me in the right paths,
as he has promised.
4 Even if I go through the deepest darkness,
I will not be afraid, Lord,
for you are with me.
Your shepherd's rod and staff protect me.
5 You prepare a banquet for me,
where all my enemies can see me;
you welcome me as an honored guest
and fill my cup to the brim.
6 I know that your goodness and love will be with me all my life;
and your house will be my home as long as I live.
The Coming Exile
17 People of Jerusalem, you are under siege! Gather up your belongings. 18 The Lord is going to throw you out of this land; he is going to crush you until not one of you is left. The Lord has spoken.
19 The people of Jerusalem cried out,
“How badly we are hurt!
Our wounds will not heal.
And we thought this was something we could endure!
20 Our tents are ruined;
the ropes that held them have broken.
Our children have all gone away;
there is no one left to put up our tents again;
there is no one to hang their curtains.”
21 I answered, “Our leaders are stupid;
they do not ask the Lord for guidance.
This is why they have failed,
and our people have been scattered.
22 Listen! News has come!
There is a great commotion in a nation to the north;
its army will turn the cities of Judah into a desert,
a place where jackals live.”
23 Lord, I know that none of us are in charge of our own destiny;
none of us have control over our own life.
24 Correct your people, Lord,
but do not be too hard on us
or punish us when you are angry;
that would be the end of us.
25 Turn your anger on the nations that do not worship you
and on the people who reject you.
They have killed your people;
they have destroyed us completely
and left our country in ruins.
In Athens
16 While Paul was waiting in Athens for Silas and Timothy, he was greatly upset when he noticed how full of idols the city was. 17 So he held discussions in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentiles who worshiped God, and also in the public square every day with the people who happened to come by. 18 Certain Epicurean and Stoic teachers also debated with him. Some of them asked, “What is this ignorant show-off trying to say?”
Others answered, “He seems to be talking about foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching about Jesus and the resurrection.[a] 19 So they took Paul, brought him before the city council, the Areopagus, and said, “We would like to know what this new teaching is that you are talking about. 20 Some of the things we hear you say sound strange to us, and we would like to know what they mean.” (21 For all the citizens of Athens and the foreigners who lived there liked to spend all their time telling and hearing the latest new thing.)
22 Paul stood up in front of the city council and said, “I see that in every way you Athenians are very religious. 23 (A)For as I walked through your city and looked at the places where you worship, I found an altar on which is written, ‘To an Unknown God.’ That which you worship, then, even though you do not know it, is what I now proclaim to you. 24 (B)God, who made the world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands. 25 (C)Nor does he need anything that we can supply by working for him, since it is he himself who gives life and breath and everything else to everyone. 26 (D)From one human being he created all races of people and made them live throughout the whole earth. He himself fixed beforehand the exact times and the limits of the places where they would live. 27 (E)He did this so that they would look for him, and perhaps find him as they felt around for him. Yet God is actually not far from any one of us; 28 as someone has said,
‘In him we live and move and exist.’
It is as some of your poets have said,
‘We too are his children.’
29 Since we are God's children, we should not suppose that his nature is anything like an image of gold or silver or stone, shaped by human art and skill. 30 God has overlooked the times when people did not know him, but now he commands all of them everywhere to turn away from their evil ways. 31 For he has fixed a day in which he will judge the whole world with justice by means of a man he has chosen. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising that man from death!”
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.