Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 17
My Righteous Plea
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A prayer by David.
David’s Righteousness
1 Hear my righteous plea, O Lord.
Pay attention to my outcry.
Turn your ear to my prayer, which is not offered by deceitful lips.
2 May a just verdict for me come from you.
May your eyes observe the things that are right.
3 You have tested my heart.
You have visited me at night.
You have refined me;
you have found nothing wrong.
I resolved that my mouth will not overstep its bounds.
4 As for the deeds of people:
by the words from your lips
I have kept myself from the ways of the violent.
5 Keep my footsteps on your paths.
My steps have not slipped.
God’s Love
6 Indeed, I call to you because you will answer me, O God.
Turn your ear toward me. Hear what I say.
7 Perform wonders through your mercy.
By your right hand save those who seek refuge
from those who rise up against them.
8 Guard me like the pupil of your eye.[a]
In the shadow of your wings hide me
9 from the wicked who try to destroy me,
from those enemies of my life who surround me.
Judah and Tamar
38 About that time Judah went down from his brothers and visited a man from Adullam named Hirah. 2 There Judah saw a daughter of a Canaanite man named Shua. He took her as a wife and went to her. 3 She conceived and gave birth to a son, and he named him Er. 4 She conceived again and gave birth to another son, and she named him Onan. 5 She gave birth to yet another son and named him Shelah. It was at Kezib that she gave birth to Shelah.
6 Judah took a wife for Er, his firstborn. Her name was Tamar. 7 It turned out that Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord killed him.
8 Then Judah said to Onan, “Go to your brother’s wife. Perform your duty for her as the brother of her deceased husband and provide offspring[a] for your brother.” 9 Onan knew that the offspring would not be his, so whenever he went to his brother’s wife, he wasted his semen on the ground, so that he would not provide offspring for his brother. 10 But the thing that he did was evil in the sight of the Lord, so the Lord killed him also.
11 Then Judah said to Tamar, his daughter-in-law, “Remain a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah is grown up.” Actually he had said to himself, “I do not want him to die like his brothers.” So Tamar went and lived in her father’s house.
12 After some time Shua’s daughter, the wife of Judah, died. When Judah had finished mourning, he went up to his sheepshearers at Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. 13 Tamar was told, “Look, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.” 14 She took off the garments that identified her as a widow, covered herself with her veil, disguised herself, and sat in the gate of Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah, because she saw that Shelah had grown up, but she was not going to be given to him as a wife.
15 When Judah saw her, he thought that she was a prostitute, because she had covered her face. 16 He turned to her by the roadside and said, “Please, let me come to you,” because he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law.
She said, “What will you give me, so that you may come to me?”
17 He said, “I will send you a young goat from the flock.”
She said, “Will you give me something as a security deposit until you send the goat?”
18 He said, “What should I give you as a deposit?”
She said, “Your stamp seal on its cord and your staff that is in your hand.”
He gave them to her and went to her, and she conceived by him. 19 Then she got up and left. Later she took off her veil and put her widow’s garments back on.
20 Judah sent the young goat with his friend, the Adullamite, to get back the deposit from the woman’s possession, but he could not find her. 21 So he asked the men from that place, “Where is the sacred prostitute who was by the road at Enaim?”
They said, “There hasn’t been any sacred prostitute here.”
22 So he returned to Judah and said, “I could not find her, and the men of the place said, ‘There hasn’t been any sacred prostitute here.’”
23 Judah said, “Let her keep it, so that we are not disgraced. Look, I did send this young goat, but you were unable to find her.”
24 About three months later Judah was told, “Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has prostituted herself, and even worse, she is pregnant by prostitution.”
Judah said, “Bring her out and burn her.”
25 When she was brought, she sent this message to her father-in-law: “I am pregnant by the man to whom these things belong.” She also said, “Please help me identify whose these are—this stamp seal on its cord and the staff.”
26 Judah recognized them and said, “She is more righteous than I, because I did not give her to Shelah, my son.” But he was not intimate with her again.
10 When the governor motioned to him to speak, Paul replied, “Because I know that you have been a judge over this nation for many years, I gladly make my defense. 11 You can verify for yourself that it was no more than twelve days ago when I went up to worship at Jerusalem. 12 They did not find me arguing with anyone in the temple or stirring up a crowd in the synagogues or anywhere else in the city. 13 And they cannot prove to you the accusations they are now making against me.
14 “But I do confess to you that I worship the God of our fathers according to the Way, which they call a sect. I believe everything written throughout the Law and in the Prophets; 15 and I have the same hope in God that these men have, that there is going to be a resurrection[a] of both the righteous and the unrighteous. 16 This is the reason I continue to do my best to have a clear conscience toward both God and people.
17 “After several years, I came to bring my people gifts for the poor and to present offerings. 18 While I was doing these things, they found me ceremonially purified in the temple, without a crowd or disturbance. 19 But there are some Jews from the province of Asia who ought to be here before you and bring charges, if they have anything against me. 20 Or let these men here state what crime they found in me when I stood before the Sanhedrin, 21 unless this is about the one thing I shouted while standing in their presence: ‘It is concerning the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you today.’”
22 Then Felix,[b] because he was rather well informed about the Way, adjourned the proceedings. He said, “When Lysias the commander comes down, I will decide your case.” 23 He ordered the centurion to guard Paul, but to let him have some freedom and not to prevent any of his friends from taking care of his needs.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.