Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
God Wants True Worship
A psalm of Asaph.
50 The God of gods, the Lord, speaks.
He calls the earth from the rising to the setting sun.
2 God shines from Jerusalem,
whose beauty is perfect.
3 Our God comes, and he will not be silent.
A fire burns in front of him,
and a powerful storm surrounds him.
4 He calls to the sky above and to the earth
that he might judge his people.
5 He says, “Gather around, you who worship me,
who have made an agreement with me, using a sacrifice.”
6 God is the judge,
and even the skies say he is right. Selah
7 God says, “My people, listen to me;
Israel, I will testify against you.
I am God, your God.
8 I do not scold you for your sacrifices.
You always bring me your burnt offerings.
22 “Think about this, you who forget God.
Otherwise, I will tear you apart,
and no one will save you.
23 Those people honor me
who bring me offerings to show thanks.
And I, God, will save those who do that.”
18 Evil is like a small fire.
First, it burns weeds and thorns.
Next, it burns the larger bushes in the forest,
and they all go up in a column of smoke.
19 The Lord All-Powerful is angry,
so the land will be burned.
The people are like fuel for the fire;
no one will try to save his brother or sister.
20 People will grab something on the right,
but they will still be hungry.
They will eat something on the left,
but they will not be filled.
Then they will each turn and eat their own children.
21 The people of Manasseh will fight against the people of Ephraim,
and Ephraim will fight against Manasseh.
Then both of them will turn against Judah.
But the Lord is still angry;
his hand is still raised to strike down the people.
10 How terrible it will be for those who make unfair laws,
and those who write laws that make life hard for people.
2 They are not fair to the poor,
and they rob my people of their rights.
They allow people to steal from widows
and to take from orphans what really belongs to them.
3 How will you explain the things you have done?
What will you do when your destruction comes from far away?
Where will you run for help?
Where will you hide your riches then?
4 You will have to bow down among the captives
or fall down among the dead bodies.
But the Lord is still angry;
his hand is still raised to strike down the people.
Stephen’s Speech
7 The high priest said to Stephen, “Are these things true?”
2 Stephen answered, “Brothers and fathers, listen to me. Our glorious God appeared to Abraham, our ancestor, in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran. 3 God said to Abraham, ‘Leave your country and your relatives, and go to the land I will show you.’[a] 4 So Abraham left the country of Chaldea and went to live in Haran. After Abraham’s father died, God sent him to this place where you now live. 5 God did not give Abraham any of this land, not even a foot of it. But God promised that he would give this land to him and his descendants, even before Abraham had a child. 6 This is what God said to him: ‘Your descendants will be strangers in a land they don’t own. The people there will make them slaves and will mistreat them for four hundred years. 7 But I will punish the nation where they are slaves. Then your descendants will leave that land and will worship me in this place.’[b] 8 God made an agreement with Abraham, the sign of which was circumcision. And so when Abraham had his son Isaac, Abraham circumcised him when he was eight days old. Isaac also circumcised his son Jacob, and Jacob did the same for his sons, the twelve ancestors[c] of our people.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.