Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
7 [a]“Listen, my people, and I will speak.
O Israel, I will testify against you.
I am God, your God.
8 I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices,
for your burnt offerings are constantly before me.
9 “I will not accept a young bull from your homes
or goats from your folds.
10 For all the living creatures of the forest are mine,
animals by the thousands on my hills.
11 I know every bird of the air,
and whatever moves in the fields belongs to me.
12 “If I were hungry, I would not tell you,
for the world is mine, and all that it holds.
13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls
or drink the blood of goats?
14 “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving
and fulfill your vows to the Most High.
15 Then if you cry out to me in time of trouble,
I will rescue you, and you will honor me.”
40 Let us examine and test our ways
and return to the Lord.
41 Let us lift up our hearts and our hands
to God in heaven.
42 We have sinned and rebelled,
and you have not forgiven us.
43 You have veiled yourself in anger and pursued us,
slaying us without pity.
44 You have wrapped yourself in a cloud
that no prayer can pierce.
45 You have reduced us to filth
and rubbish among the nations.
46 All of our enemies have opened their mouths
in a chorus of jeers against us.
47 Terror and pitfall, devastation and ruin,
have been our lot.
48 My eyes flow with a torrent of tears
because of the destruction of my people.
49 My eyes will flow with unceasing tears,
and there will be no respite
50 until the Lord from heaven
looks down and sees.
51 My eyes are swollen with grief
at the fate of all the daughters of my city.
52 Those who were my enemies without justification
have hunted me down like a bird.
53 They thrust me alive into a pit
and hurled down stones at me.
54 The waters rose above my head,
and I said, “I am lost.”
55 I called upon your name, O Lord,
from the depths of the pit.
56 You heard me plead,
“Do not close your ear to my cry for help!”
57 You came near when I called out to you,
and you said, “Do not fear.”
58 O Lord, you have taken up my cause,
and you have redeemed my life.
Chapter 28
Paul at Malta. 1 Once we had made our way to safety, we learned that the island was called Malta.[a] 2 The natives[b] treated us with unusual kindness. Since it had begun to rain and was cold, they lit a bonfire and welcomed all of us around it.
3 Paul had gathered an armful of sticks and put them on the fire when a viper, driven out by the heat, attached itself to his hand. 4 On seeing the snake hanging from his hand, the natives said to one another, “This man must be a murderer. Although he escaped from the sea, Justice[c] has not allowed him to live.”
5 However, he shook off the snake into the fire and suffered no harm. 6 They were expecting him to swell up or drop dead, but after waiting for a long time and seeing nothing unusual happen to him, they changed their minds and began to say that he was a god.
7 In the vicinity of that place there were lands belonging to the leading man of the island, whose name was Publius.[d] He received us and gave us his hospitality for three days. 8 It so happened that this man’s father was sick with a fever and dysentery. Paul visited him and cured him by praying and laying hands on him. 9 After this happened, the rest of the sick people on the island also came and were cured. 10 They honored us with many marks of respect, and when we were about to set sail, they put on board all the supplies we needed.
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