Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 122

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

Haman Executed

7 So the king and Haman entered to feast and drink with Queen Esther. ² The king repeated to Esther what he had said on the previous day while drinking wine, “For what are you asking, Queen Esther? It shall be granted to you. Now, what is your request? Even if it is half of the kingdom, it will be done!”

³ Queen Esther replied, “If I have found favor in your sight, O king, and if it pleases the king, at my petition, let my life be given me, and my people at my request. ⁴ For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to be annihilated. If only we had been sold as male and female slaves, I could have kept quiet, for that distress would not be sufficient to trouble the king.”

⁵ Then King Ahasuerus answered and demanded of Queen Esther, “Who is he, and where is he, who would dare presume in his heart to do so?”

⁶ Esther said, “This wicked Haman is the adversary and enemy!”

Then Haman was seized with terror before the king and the queen. ⁷ And the king arose from the banquet of wine in his wrath and went into the palace garden. But Haman remained to plead for his life from Queen Esther, for he saw that harm was determined against him by the king.

⁸ Now the king returned from the palace garden back to the hall of the banquet as Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was.

Then the king said, “Will he also violate the queen while I am in the room?”

As the shout erupted from the king’s mouth, they covered the face of Haman. ⁹ Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in the king’s presence, said, “The gallows, fifty cubits^[a] high, which Haman had constructed for Mordecai (who had spoken good on behalf of the king), stands at the house of Haman.”

¹⁰ Then the king said, “Hang him on it!” So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king’s wrath was pacified.

A Vision of Christ

⁹ I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the isle that is called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. ¹⁰ I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a great voice like a trumpet, ¹¹ saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,” and “What you see, write in a book, and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”

¹² I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And when I turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks, ¹³ and in the midst of the seven candlesticks was one like a Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and with a golden sash wrapped around the chest. ¹⁴ The hair on His head was white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire. ¹⁵ His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters. ¹⁶ He had in His right hand seven stars, and out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword. His appearance was like the sun shining brightly.

¹⁷ When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though I were dead. Then He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. ¹⁸ I am He who lives, though I was dead. Look! I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.

¹⁹ “Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this. ²⁰ The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven candlesticks which you saw are the seven churches.