Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
5 Your steadfast love, O Lord, is as great as all the heavens. Your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. 6 Your justice is as solid as God’s mountains. Your decisions are as full of wisdom as the oceans are with water. You are concerned[a] for men and animals alike. 7 How precious is your constant love, O God! All humanity takes refuge in the shadow of your wings. 8 You feed them with blessings from your own table and let them drink from your rivers of delight.
9 For you are the Fountain of life; our light is from your light. 10 Pour out your unfailing love on those who know you! Never stop giving your blessings[b] to those who long to do your will.
3 There is a law[a] that if a man divorces a woman who then remarries, he is not to take her back again, for she has become corrupted. But though you have left me and married many lovers, yet I have invited you to come to me again, the Lord says. 2 Is there a single spot in all the land where you haven’t been defiled by your adulteries—your worshiping these other gods?[b] You sit like a prostitute beside the road waiting for a client! You sit alone like a Bedouin in the desert. You have polluted the land with your vile prostitution. 3 That is why even the springtime rains have failed. For you are a prostitute and completely unashamed. 4-5 And yet you say to me, “O Father, you have always been my Friend; surely you won’t be angry about such a little thing! Surely you will just forget it?” So you talk and keep right on doing all the evil that you can.
18 When Simon saw this—that the Holy Spirit was given when the apostles placed their hands upon people’s heads—he offered money to buy this power.
19 “Let me have this power too,” he exclaimed, “so that when I lay my hands on people, they will receive the Holy Spirit!”
20 But Peter replied, “Your money perish with you for thinking God’s gift can be bought! 21 You can have no part in this, for your heart is not right before God. 22 Turn from this great wickedness and pray. Perhaps God will yet forgive your evil thoughts— 23 for I can see that there is jealousy[a] and sin in your heart.”
24 “Pray for me,” Simon exclaimed, “that these terrible things won’t happen to me.”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.