Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Yahweh the Shepherd
A psalm of David.[a]
23 Yahweh is my shepherd;
I will not lack for anything.
2 In grassy pastures he makes me lie down;
by quiet waters he leads me.
3 He restores my life.[b]
He leads me in correct paths[c]
for the sake of his name.
4 Even when I walk in a dark valley, I fear no evil
because you are with me.
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
5 You prepare before me a table
in the presence of my oppressors.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup is overflowing.
6 Surely goodness and loyal love will pursue me
all the days of my life,
and I will stay[d] in the house[e] of Yahweh
for a very long time.[f]
17 Gather your bundle from the ground,
you who live under the siege.’”
18 For thus says Yahweh,
“Look, I am about to sling out the inhabitants of the land at this time,
and I will bring distress to them, so that they may feel it.”
The Nation Accepts Its Judgment
19 Woe to me, because of my wound.
My wound is incurable.
But I said, “Surely this is my sickness,
and I must bear it.”
20 My tent is devastated,
and all my tent cords are torn.
My children have gone out from me,
and they are not.
There is no one who pitches my tent again,
or one who puts up my tent curtains.
21 For the shepherds have become stupid,
they do not seek Yahweh.
Therefore[a] they do not have insight,
and all of their flock are scattered.
22 Listen, news:[b]
Look, it is coming,
a great roar from the land of the north,
to make the cities of Judah a desolation,
a lair of jackals.
23 I know, O Yahweh, that to the human is not his own way,
nor to a person is the walking and the directing of his own step.
24 Chastise[c] me, O Yahweh, but in moderation,
not in your anger, lest you eradicate me.
25 Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not know you,
and on the peoples that do not call on your name,
for they have devoured Jacob,
they have devoured and consumed him,
and they have caused his settlement to be desolate.
Paul in Athens
16 Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he[a] observed the city was full of idols. 17 So he was discussing in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles,[b] and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 And even some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him, and some were saying, “What does this babbler want to say?” But others said,[c] “He appears to be a proclaimer of foreign deities,” because he was proclaiming the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took hold of him and[d] brought him[e] to the Areopagus, saying, “May we learn what is this new teaching being proclaimed by you? 20 For you are bringing some astonishing things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.”[f] 21 (Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who stayed there used to spend their time in nothing else than telling something or listening to something new.)
Paul Speaks to the Areopagus
22 So Paul stood there in the middle of the Areopagus and[g] said, “Men of Athens, I see you are very religious in every respect.[h] 23 For as I[i] was passing through and observing carefully your objects of worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed, ‘To an unknown God.’ Therefore what you worship without knowing it,[j] this I proclaim to you— 24 the God who made the world and all the things in it. This one, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands as if he[k] needed anything, because[l] he himself gives to everyone life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of humanity to live on all the face of the earth, determining their fixed times and the fixed boundaries of their habitation, 27 to search for God, if perhaps indeed they might feel around for him and find him.[m] And indeed he is not far away from each one of us, 28 for in him we live and move and exist,[n] as even some of your own[o] poets have said: ‘For we also are his[p] offspring.’[q] 29 Therefore, because we[r] are offspring of God, we ought not to think the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought. 30 Therefore although[s] God has overlooked the times of ignorance, he now commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man who he has appointed, having provided proof to everyone by[t] raising him from the dead.”
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