Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

5 ^1-2 O Lord, hear me praying; listen to my plea, O God my King, for I will never pray to anyone but you. ³ Each morning I will look to you in heaven and lay my requests before you, praying earnestly.

⁴ I know you get no pleasure from wickedness and cannot tolerate the slightest sin. ⁵ Therefore, proud sinners will not survive your searching gaze, for how you hate their evil deeds. ⁶ You will destroy them for their lies; how you abhor all murder and deception.

⁷ But as for me, I will come into your Temple protected by your mercy and your love; I will worship you with deepest awe.

⁸ Lord, lead me as you promised me you would; otherwise my enemies will conquer me. Tell me clearly what to do, which way to turn. ⁹ For they cannot speak one truthful word. Their hearts are filled to the brim with wickedness. Their suggestions are full of the stench of sin and death. Their tongues are filled with flatteries to gain their wicked ends. ¹⁰ O God, hold them responsible. Catch them in their own traps; let them fall beneath the weight of their own transgressions, for they rebel against you.

¹¹ But make everyone rejoice who puts his trust in you. Keep them shouting for joy because you are defending them. Fill all who love you with your happiness. ¹² For you bless the godly man, O Lord; you protect him with your shield of love.

56 Be just and fair to all, the Lord God says. Do what’s right and good, for I am coming soon to rescue you. ² Blessed is the man who refuses to work during my Sabbath days of rest, but honors them; and blessed is the man who checks himself from doing wrong.

³ And my blessings are for Gentiles, too, when they accept the Lord; don’t let them think that I will make them second-class citizens. And this is for the eunuchs too. They can be as much mine as anyone. ⁴ For I say this to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths holy, who choose the things that please me and obey my laws: ⁵ I will give them—in my house, within my walls—a name far greater than the honor they would receive from having sons and daughters. For the name that I will give them is an everlasting one; it will never disappear.

⁶ As for the Gentiles, the outsiders who join the people of the Lord and serve him and love his name, who are his servants and don’t desecrate the Sabbath, and have accepted his covenant and promises, ⁷ I will bring them also to my holy mountain of Jerusalem and make them full of joy within my House of Prayer.

I will accept their sacrifices and offerings, for my Temple shall be called “A House of Prayer for All People”! ⁸ For the Lord God who brings back the outcasts of Israel says: I will bring others, too, besides my people Israel.

²⁴ Then he left Galilee and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon,^[a] and tried to keep it a secret that he was there, but couldn’t. For as usual the news of his arrival spread fast.

²⁵ Right away a woman came to him whose little girl was possessed by a demon. She had heard about Jesus and now she came and fell at his feet, ²⁶ and pled with him to release her child from the demon’s control. (But she was Syrophoenician—a “despised Gentile”!)

²⁷ Jesus told her, “First I should help my own family—the Jews.^[b] It isn’t right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”

²⁸ She replied, “That’s true, sir, but even the puppies under the table are given some scraps from the children’s plates.”

²⁹ “Good!” he said. “You have answered well—so well that I have healed your little girl. Go on home, for the demon has left her!”

³⁰ And when she arrived home, her little girl was lying quietly in bed, and the demon was gone.