Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
138 (0) By David:
(1) I give you thanks with all my heart.
Not to idols, but to you I sing praise.
2 I bow down toward your holy temple
and give thanks to your name for your grace and truth;
for you have made your word [even] greater
than the whole of your reputation.
3 When I called, you answered me,
you made me bold and strong.
4 All the kings of the earth will thank you, Adonai,
when they hear the words you have spoken.
5 They will sing about Adonai’s ways,
“Great is the glory of Adonai!”
6 For though Adonai is high, he cares for the lowly;
while the proud he perceives from afar.
7 You keep me alive when surrounded by danger;
you put out your hand when my enemies rage;
with your right hand you save me.
8 Adonai will fulfill his purpose for me.
Your grace, Adonai, continues forever.
Don’t abandon the work of your hands!
19 When the girls would gather on other occasions, Mordekhai would sit at the King’s Gate. 20 Ester had not yet revealed her family ties or her people, as Mordekhai had ordered her; for Ester continued obeying what Mordekhai told her to do, as she had when he was raising her. 21 On one of those occasions, when Mordekhai was sitting at the King’s Gate, two of the king’s officers, Bigtan and Teresh, from the group in charge of the private entryways, became angry and conspired to assassinate King Achashverosh. 22 But Mordekhai learned about it and told Ester the queen. Ester reported it to the king, crediting Mordekhai. 23 The matter was investigated, found to be true, and both were hanged on a stake. All this was recorded in the daily journal that was kept with the king.
3 Some time later King Achashverosh began to single out Haman the son of Hamdata the Agagi for advancement; eventually he gave him precedence over all his fellow officers. 2 All the king’s servants at the King’s Gate would kneel and bow down before Haman, because the king had so ordered. But Mordekhai would neither kneel nor bow down to him. 3 The king’s servants at the King’s Gate asked Mordekhai, “Why don’t you obey the king’s order?” 4 But after they had confronted him a number of times without his paying attention to them, they told Haman, in order to find out whether Mordekhai’s explanation that he was a Jew would suffice to justify his behavior. 5 Haman was furious when he saw that Mordekhai was not kneeling and bowing down to him. 6 However, on learning what people Mordekhai belonged to, it seemed to him a waste to lay hands on Mordekhai alone. Rather, he decided to destroy all of Mordekhai’s people, the Jews, throughout the whole of Achashverosh’s kingdom.
15 During this period, when the group of believers numbered about 120, Kefa stood up and addressed his fellow-believers: 16 “Brothers, the Ruach HaKodesh spoke in advance through David about Y’hudah, and these words of the Tanakh had to be fulfilled. He was guide for those who arrested Yeshua — 17 he was one of us and had been assigned a part in our work.” 18 (With the money Y’hudah received for his evil deed, he bought a field; and there he fell to his death. His body swelled up and burst open, and all his insides spilled out. 19 This became known to everyone in Yerushalayim, so they called that field Hakal-D’ma — which in their language means “Field of Blood”). 20 “Now,” said Kefa, “it is written in the book of Psalms,
‘Let his estate become desolate,
let there be no one to live in it’;[a]
and
‘Let someone else take his place as a supervisor.’[b]
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.