Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
8 [a]Bless our God, all you peoples;
let the sound of his praise be heard.
9 For he has preserved our lives[b]
and has kept our feet from stumbling.
10 For you, O God, have put us to the test;
you have purified us as silver is refined.
11 [c]You allowed us to be snared in the net
and placed heavy burdens on our backs.
12 You let our captors ride over our heads,[d]
and we went through fire and water,
but now you have afforded us relief.
13 [e]I will enter your house with burnt offerings
and carry out my vows to you,
14 the vows that my lips pronounced
and my mouth promised when I was in distress.
15 I will offer burnt offerings of fat animals
with the smoke of burning rams;
I will sacrifice to you bulls and goats. Selah
16 Come and listen, all you who fear God,
while I relate what he has done for me.
17 [f]I lifted up my voice in prayer to him;
his praise[g] was on my tongue.
18 [h]If I had harbored evil in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened.
19 But God truly did listen,
and he was attentive to the words of my prayer.
20 Blessed[i] be God,
because he did not reject my prayer
or withhold his kindness from me.
5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of men upon the earth was great, and that every plan that their hearts conceived was nothing but evil. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made man upon the earth and his heart was grieved. 7 The Lord said, “I will obliterate man, whom I created, from the earth. Together with man I will eliminate all the cattle and reptiles and the birds of the air, for I regret having made them.” 8 But Noah found favor with the Lord.
Salvation through the Righteous.[a] 9 This is the story of Noah. Noah was a just and blameless man at that time and he walked with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 11 But the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and filled with violence. 12 God saw that the earth was corrupt, for every person on the earth was perverse in what he did.
13 God therefore said to Noah, “I have decided to end everything, for they have filled the earth with their violence. Behold, I will destroy the entire creation. 14 Build an ark[b] of gopher wood and divide the ark into compartments and caulk it with bitumen inside and out. 15 This is how you shall make it: the ark will be three hundred cubits long, fifty wide, and thirty high. 16 Make a roof on the ark one cubit high.[c] Place a door in the side of the ark. Make it with three decks: lower, middle, and higher.
17 “Behold, I will send a flood. The waters shall cover the earth to destroy the life of everything under the skies that has the breath of life in it. Everything on the earth shall perish. 18 But I will establish a covenant with you.
“Go into the ark, you and your sons, your wife, and the wives of your sons. 19 Bring into the ark two of everything that lives, of all flesh. Bring a male and female of each species into the ark to save them. 20 Bring two birds of each species, two animals of each species, and two reptiles of each species with you to save them. 21 As for you, gather every type of food and take it with you. It shall nourish both you and them.”
22 Noah did all of this, exactly as God had commanded him.
The Journey to Rome[a]
Chapter 27
Paul’s Voyage toward Rome. 1 When it was decided that we[b] should sail for Italy, Paul and some other prisoners were handed over to Julius, a centurion of the Augustan cohort. 2 We embarked on a ship from Adramyttium[c] that was about to sail to ports in the province of Asia, and we put out to sea, accompanied by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica.
3 On the next day, we landed at Sidon,[d] and Julius was considerate enough to allow Paul to visit his friends there and be cared for by them. 4 From there, we put out to sea again and sailed around the sheltered side of Cyprus because of the headwinds. 5 Then, crossing the open sea off the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we reached Myra in Lycia.[e]
Storm and Shipwreck. 6 There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship[f] that was bound for Italy and put us on board. 7 For a good many days, we made little headway, and we experienced difficulty in reaching Cnidus.[g] Then, as the wind continued to pose difficulties, we sailed for the sheltered side of Crete off Salmone. 8 We moved along the coast with difficulty and reached a place called Fair Havens,[h] near the city of Lasea.
9 Much time had already been lost, and sailing had now become hazardous, since the time of the Fast[i] had already gone by. Therefore, Paul gave them this warning, 10 “Men, I can see that this voyage will be fraught with danger and involve heavy losses, not only of the ship and the cargo but also of our lives.”
11 However, the centurion paid more attention to the advice of the captain and of the ship’s owner than to what Paul said. 12 Since the harbor was unsuitable for spending the winter, the majority were in favor of putting out to sea from there, in the hope that they could reach Phoenix,[j] a harbor of Crete facing southwest and northwest, and spend the winter there.
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