Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 86

A Prayer of David.

¹ Incline Your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and distressed, needy and desiring.

² Preserve my life, for I am godly and dedicated; O my God, save Your servant, for I trust in You [leaning and believing on You, committing all and confidently looking to You, without fear or doubt].

³ Be merciful and gracious to me, O Lord, for to You do I cry all the day.

⁴ Make me, Your servant, to rejoice, O Lord, for to You do I lift myself up.

⁵ For You, O Lord, are good, and ready to forgive [our trespasses, sending them away, letting them go completely and forever]; and You are abundant in mercy and loving-kindness to all those who call upon You.

⁶ Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; and listen to the cry of my supplications.

⁷ In the day of my trouble I will call on You, for You will answer me.

⁸ There is none like unto You among the gods, O Lord, neither are their works like unto Yours.

⁹ All nations whom You have made shall come and fall down before You, O Lord; and they shall glorify Your name.

¹⁰ For You are great and work wonders! You alone are God.

¹¹ Teach me Your way, O Lord, that I may walk and live in Your truth; direct and unite my heart [solely, reverently] to fear and honor Your name.^(A)

¹² I will confess and praise You, O Lord my God, with my whole (united) heart; and I will glorify Your name forevermore.

¹³ For great is Your mercy and loving-kindness toward me; and You have delivered me from the depths of Sheol [from the exceeding depths of affliction].

¹⁴ O God, the proud and insolent are risen against me; a rabble of violent and ruthless men has sought and demanded my life, and they have not set You before them.

¹⁵ But You, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy and loving-kindness and truth.

¹⁶ O turn to me and have mercy and be gracious to me; grant strength (might and inflexibility to temptation) to Your servant and save the son of Your handmaiden.

¹⁷ Show me a sign of [Your evident] goodwill and favor, that those who hate me may see it and be put to shame, because You, Lord, [will show Your approval of me when You] help and comfort me.

¹⁰ Then the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying,

¹¹ I regret making Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me and has not performed My commands. And Samuel was grieved and angry [with Saul], and he cried to the Lord all night.

¹² When Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, he was told, Saul came to Carmel, and behold, he set up for himself a monument or trophy [of his victory] and passed on and went down to Gilgal.

¹³ And Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, Blessed are you of the Lord. I have performed what the Lord ordered.

¹⁴ And Samuel said, What then means this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?

¹⁵ Saul said, They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen to sacrifice to the Lord your God, but the rest we have utterly destroyed.

¹⁶ Then Samuel said to Saul, Stop! I will tell you what the Lord said to me tonight. Saul said to him, Say on.

¹⁷ Samuel said, When you were small in your own sight, were you not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed you king over Israel?

¹⁸ And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, Go, utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites; and fight against them until they are consumed.

¹⁹ Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord, but swooped down upon the plunder and did evil in the Lord’s sight?

²⁰ Saul said to Samuel, Yes, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag king of Amalek and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.

²¹ But the people took from the spoil sheep and oxen, the chief of the things to be utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.

²² Samuel said, Has the Lord as great a delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

²³ For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim (household good luck images). Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.

²⁴ And Saul said to Samuel, I have sinned; for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice.

²⁵ Now, I pray you, pardon my sin and go back with me, that I may worship the Lord.

²⁶ And Samuel said to Saul, I will not return with you; for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.

²⁷ And as Samuel turned to go away, Saul seized the skirt of Samuel’s mantle, and it tore.

²⁸ And Samuel said to him, The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you this day and has given it to a neighbor of yours who is better than you.

²⁹ And also the Strength of Israel will not lie or repent; for He is not a man, that He should repent.

³⁰ Saul said, I have sinned; yet honor me now, I pray you, before the elders of my people and before Israel, and return with me, that I may worship the Lord your God.

³¹ So Samuel turned back after Saul, and Saul worshiped the Lord.

5 But a certain man named Ananias with his wife Sapphira sold a piece of property,

² And with his wife’s knowledge and connivance he kept back and wrongfully appropriated some of the proceeds, bringing only a part and putting it at the feet of the apostles.

³ But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart that you should lie to and attempt to deceive the Holy Spirit, and should [in violation of your promise] withdraw secretly and appropriate to your own use part of the price from the sale of the land?

⁴ As long as it remained unsold, was it not still your own? And [even] after it was sold, was not [the money] at your disposal and under your control? Why then, is it that you have proposed and purposed in your heart to do this thing? [How could you have the heart to do such a deed?] You have not [simply] lied to men [playing false and showing yourself utterly deceitful] but to God.

⁵ Upon hearing these words, Ananias fell down and died. And great dread and terror took possession of all who heard of it.

⁶ And the young men arose and wrapped up [the body] and carried it out and buried it.

⁷ Now after an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not having learned of what had happened.

⁸ And Peter said to her, Tell me, did you sell the land for so much? Yes, she said, for so much.

⁹ Then Peter said to her, How could you two have agreed and conspired together to try to deceive the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out [also].

¹⁰ And instantly she fell down at his feet and died; and the young men entering found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

¹¹ And the whole church and all others who heard of these things were appalled [great awe and strange terror and dread seized them].