Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 23

A Psalm of David.

Jacob’s Agreement With Laban

²⁵ When Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, “Send me away, so that I may go to my own place, to my country. ²⁶ Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, and let me go. For you know the service that I have given you.”

²⁷ Laban said to him, “If I have found favor in your eyes, please stay. For I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me on account of you.” ²⁸ He said, “Name me your wages, and I will give it.”

²⁹ Jacob said to him, “You know how I have served you, and how your livestock have fared with me. ³⁰ For you had little before I came, and it is now increased to a multitude. The Lord has blessed you since I came, and now when may I also provide for my own house?”

³¹ Laban said, “What may I give you?”

And Jacob said, “You may not give me anything, but if you will do this one thing for me, I will continue to feed and keep your flock. ³² I will pass through all your flock today, removing from it all the speckled and spotted sheep, and every brown sheep from among the lambs, and the spotted and speckled among the goats. These shall be my wages. ³³ So my integrity will answer for me in time to come. When you come to examine my wages, every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats, and brown among the sheep that are with me will be considered stolen.”

³⁴ Laban said, “Agreed. Let it be according to your word.” ³⁵ He removed that day the male goats that were striped and spotted and all the female goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had some white in it, and all the brown ones among the sheep, and gave them into the care of his sons. ³⁶ He put three days’ journey between himself and Jacob, and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flocks.

³⁷ Then Jacob took rods of fresh-cut poplar, almond, and plane trees, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white which was in the rods. ³⁸ He set the rods which he had peeled before the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink, so that they would mate when they came to drink. ³⁹ The flocks mated before the rods and gave birth to young that were striped, speckled, and spotted. ⁴⁰ Jacob separated the lambs and made the flocks face toward the striped and all the brown in the flock of Laban. He put his own flocks by themselves and did not put them with Laban’s sheep. ⁴¹ Whenever the stronger sheep mated, Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the sheep in the troughs, so that they might mate among the rods. ⁴² But when the livestock were feeble, he did not put them in. So the weaker were Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s. ⁴³ The man became exceedingly prosperous and had many sheep and female servants and male servants and camels and donkeys.

¹⁷ “Now brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. ¹⁸ But what God foretold through all the prophets, that His Christ should suffer, He thus fulfilled. ¹⁹ Therefore repent and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, ²⁰ and that He may send the One who previously was preached to you, Jesus Christ, ²¹ whom the heavens must receive until the time of restoring what God spoke through all His holy prophets since the world began. ²² For Moses indeed said to the fathers, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall hear whatever He may say to you. ²³ And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly eliminated from the people.’^[a]

²⁴ “Indeed, all the prophets since Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold these days. ²⁵ You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’^{[b] 26} God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to you first, to bless you in turning every one of you from your iniquities.”