Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
To the Music Director: A Davidic Song
God’s Knowledge and Presence
139 Lord, you have examined me;
you have known me.
2 You know when I rest[a]
and when I am active.[b]
You understand what I am thinking
when I am distant from you.[c]
3 You scrutinize my life and my rest;[d]
you are familiar with all of my ways.
4 Even before I have formed a word with my tongue,
you, Lord, know it completely!
5 You encircle me from back to front,
placing your hand upon me.
6 Knowledge like this is too amazing for me.
It is beyond my reach,
and I cannot fathom it.
13 It was you who formed my internal organs,[a]
fashioning me within my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you,
because you are fearful and wondrous![b]
Your work is wonderful,
and I am fully aware of it.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
while I was being crafted in a hidden place,
knit together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes looked upon my embryo,
and everything was recorded in your book.
The days scheduled[c] for my formation were inscribed,
even though not one of them had come yet.[d]
17 How deep[e] are your thoughts, God!
How great is their number!
18 Were I to count them,
they would number more than the sand.
When I awake, I will be with you.
19 They got up early the next morning and worshipped in the Lord’s presence, and then they returned and came to their house at Ramah. Elkanah had marital relations with[a] his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. 20 By the time of the next year’s sacrifice,[b] Hannah had become pregnant and had borne a son. She named him Samuel[c] because she said,[d] “I asked the Lord for him.”
Hannah Dedicates Samuel to the Lord
21 Then Elkanah went up with all his family to offer the yearly sacrifice to the Lord and pay his vow. 22 Hannah did not go up because she had told her husband, “As soon as the child is weaned, I’ll take him to appear in the Lord’s presence and remain there[e] forever.”[f]
23 “Do what you want,”[g] Elkanah told her. “Stay until you have weaned him, only may the Lord bring about what you’ve said.”[h] So Hannah[i] stayed and nursed her son until she had weaned him. 24 Then, when she had weaned him, she brought him[j] up with her to Shiloh,[k] along with a three-year-old bull,[l] an ephah[m] of flour, and a skin of wine. She brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh, and the boy[n] was young.[o] 25 They slaughtered the bull and brought the boy[p] to Eli.
26 Hannah[q] said, “Sir,[r] as surely as you are alive, I’m the woman who stood before you here praying to the Lord. 27 I prayed for this boy, and the Lord granted me the request I asked of him.
Nothing Can Separate Us from God’s Love
31 What, then, can we say about all of this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 The one who did not spare his own Son, but offered him as a sacrifice[a] for all of us, surely will give us all things, along with his Son,[b] won’t he? 33 Who will accuse God’s elect? It is God who justifies! 34 Who is the one to condemn? It is the Messiah[c] Jesus who is interceding on our behalf. He died, and more importantly, has been raised and is seated at the right hand of God.
35 Who will separate us from the Messiah’s[d] love? Can trouble, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, or a violent death[e] do this?[f] 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being put to death all day long.
We are thought of as sheep headed for slaughter.”[g]
37 In all these things we are triumphantly victorious due to the one who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor anything above, nor anything below, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is ours[h] in union with the Messiah[i] Jesus, our Lord.
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