Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
94 Yahweh, you God to whom vengeance belongs,
you God to whom vengeance belongs, shine out.
2 Rise up, you judge of the earth.
Pay back the proud what they deserve.
3 Yahweh, how long will the wicked,
how long will the wicked triumph?
4 They pour out arrogant words.
All the evildoers boast.
5 They break your people in pieces, Yahweh,
and afflict your heritage.
6 They kill the widow and the alien,
and murder the fatherless.
7 They say, “Yah will not see,
neither will Jacob’s God consider.”
8 Consider, you senseless among the people;
you fools, when will you be wise?
9 He who implanted the ear, won’t he hear?
He who formed the eye, won’t he see?
10 He who disciplines the nations, won’t he punish?
He who teaches man knows.
11 Yahweh knows the thoughts of man,
that they are futile.
12 Blessed is the man whom you discipline, Yah,
and teach out of your law,
13 that you may give him rest from the days of adversity,
until the pit is dug for the wicked.
14 For Yahweh won’t reject his people,
neither will he forsake his inheritance.
15 For judgment will return to righteousness.
All the upright in heart shall follow it.
16 Who will rise up for me against the wicked?
Who will stand up for me against the evildoers?
17 Unless Yahweh had been my help,
my soul would have soon lived in silence.
18 When I said, “My foot is slipping!”
Your loving kindness, Yahweh, held me up.
19 In the multitude of my thoughts within me,
your comforts delight my soul.
20 Shall the throne of wickedness have fellowship with you,
which brings about mischief by statute?
21 They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous,
and condemn the innocent blood.
22 But Yahweh has been my high tower,
my God, the rock of my refuge.
23 He has brought on them their own iniquity,
and will cut them off in their own wickedness.
Yahweh, our God, will cut them off.
1 In the days when the judges judged, there was a famine in the land. A certain man of Bethlehem Judah went to live in the country of Moab with his wife and his two sons. 2 The name of the man was Elimelech, and the name of his wife Naomi. The names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehem Judah. They came into the country of Moab and lived there. 3 Elimelech, Naomi’s husband, died; and she was left with her two sons. 4 They took for themselves wives of the women of Moab. The name of the one was Orpah, and the name of the other was Ruth. They lived there about ten years. 5 Mahlon and Chilion both died, and the woman was bereaved of her two children and of her husband. 6 Then she arose with her daughters-in-law, that she might return from the country of Moab; for she had heard in the country of Moab how Yahweh[a] had visited his people in giving them bread. 7 She went out of the place where she was, and her two daughters-in-law with her. They went on the way to return to the land of Judah. 8 Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go, return each of you to her mother’s house. May Yahweh deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 9 May Yahweh grant you that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband.”
Then she kissed them, and they lifted up their voices, and wept. 10 They said to her, “No, but we will return with you to your people.”
11 Naomi said, “Go back, my daughters. Why do you want to go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb, that they may be your husbands? 12 Go back, my daughters, go your way; for I am too old to have a husband. If I should say, ‘I have hope,’ if I should even have a husband tonight, and should also bear sons, 13 would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from having husbands? No, my daughters, for it grieves me seriously for your sakes, for Yahweh’s hand has gone out against me.”
14 They lifted up their voices and wept again; then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth stayed with her. 15 She said, “Behold,[b] your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. Follow your sister-in-law.”
16 Ruth said, “Don’t urge me to leave you, and to return from following you, for where you go, I will go; and where you stay, I will stay. Your people will be my people, and your God[c] my God. 17 Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May Yahweh do so to me, and more also, if anything but death parts you and me.”
18 When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
19 So they both went until they came to Bethlehem. When they had come to Bethlehem, all the city was excited about them, and they asked, “Is this Naomi?”
20 She said to them, “Don’t call me Naomi.[d] Call me Mara,[e] for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. 21 I went out full, and Yahweh has brought me home again empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since Yahweh has testified against me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?” 22 So Naomi returned, and Ruth the Moabitess, her daughter-in-law, with her, who returned out of the country of Moab. They came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest.
5 Don’t rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father; the younger men as brothers; 2 the elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, in all purity.
3 Honor widows who are widows indeed. 4 But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them learn first to show piety toward their own family and to repay their parents, for this is[a] acceptable in the sight of God. 5 Now she who is a widow indeed and desolate, has her hope set on God and continues in petitions and prayers night and day. 6 But she who gives herself to pleasure is dead while she lives. 7 Also command these things, that they may be without reproach. 8 But if anyone doesn’t provide for his own, and especially his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
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