Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 99
1 The Lord reigns, let the peoples tremble [with reverential fear]! He sits [enthroned] above the cherubim, let the earth quake!
2 The Lord is great in Zion, and He is high above all the peoples.
3 Let them confess and praise Your great name, awesome and reverence inspiring! It is holy, and holy is He!(A)
4 The strength of the king who loves righteousness and equity You establish in uprightness; You execute justice and righteousness in Jacob (Israel).
5 Extol the Lord our God and worship at His footstool! Holy is He!
6 Moses and Aaron were among His priests, and Samuel was among those who called upon His name; they called upon the Lord, and He answered them.
7 He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud; they kept His testimonies and the statutes that He gave them.(B)
8 You answered them, O Lord our God; You were a forgiving God to them, although avenging their evildoing and wicked practices.
9 Extol the Lord our God and worship at His holy hill, for the Lord our God is holy!
22 Now Eli was very old, and he heard all that his sons did to all Israel and how they lay with the women who served at the door of the Tent of Meeting.
23 And he said to them, Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all the people.
24 No, my sons; it is no good report which I hear the Lord’s people spreading abroad.
25 If one man wrongs another, God will mediate for him; but if a man wrongs the Lord, who shall intercede for him? Yet they did not listen to their father, for it was the Lord’s will to slay them.
26 Now the boy Samuel grew and was in favor both with the Lord and with men.
27 A man of God came to Eli and said to him, Thus has the Lord said: I plainly revealed Myself to the house of your father [forefather Aaron] when they were in Egypt in bondage to Pharaoh’s house.
28 Moreover, I selected him out of all the tribes of Israel to be My priest, to offer on My altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before Me. And I gave [from then on] to the house of your father [forefather] all the offerings of the Israelites made by fire.
29 Why then do you kick [trample upon, treat with contempt] My sacrifice and My offering which I commanded, and honor your sons above Me by fattening yourselves upon the choicest part of every offering of My people Israel?
30 Therefore the Lord, the God of Israel, says, I did promise that your house and that of your father [forefather Aaron] should go in and out before Me forever. But now the Lord says, Be it far from Me. For those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.
31 Behold, the time is coming when I will cut off your strength and the strength of your own father’s house, that there shall not be an old man in your house.
32 And you shall behold the distress of My house, even in all the prosperity which God will give Israel, and there shall not be an old man in your house forever.
33 Yet I will not cut off from My altar every man of yours; some shall survive to weep and mourn [over the family’s ruin], but all the increase of your house shall die in their best years.(A)
34 And what befalls your two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, shall be a sign to you—in one day they both shall die. [Fulfilled in I Sam. 4:17, 18.]
35 And I will raise up for Myself a [a]faithful priest (Priest), who shall do according to what is in My heart and mind. And I will build him a sure house, and he shall walk before My anointed (Anointed) forever.(B)
36 Everyone who is left in your house shall come crouching to him for a piece of silver and a bit of bread and say, Put me, I pray you, into a priest’s office so I may have a piece of bread.
5 Later on there was a Jewish festival (feast) for which Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
2 Now there is in Jerusalem a pool near the Sheep Gate. This pool in the Hebrew is called Bethesda, having five porches (alcoves, colonnades, doorways).
3 In these lay a great number of sick folk—some blind, some crippled, and some paralyzed (shriveled up)—[a]waiting for the bubbling up of the water.
4 For an angel of the Lord went down at appointed seasons into the pool and moved and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was cured of whatever disease with which he was afflicted.
5 There was a certain man there who had suffered with a deep-seated and lingering disorder for thirty-eight years.
6 When Jesus noticed him lying there [helpless], knowing that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, Do you want to become well? [Are you really in earnest about getting well?]
7 The invalid answered, Sir, I have nobody when the water is moving to put me into the pool; but while I am trying to come [into it] myself, somebody else steps down ahead of me.
8 Jesus said to him, Get up! Pick up your bed (sleeping pad) and walk!
9 Instantly the man became well and recovered his strength and picked up his bed and walked. But that happened on the Sabbath.
10 So the Jews kept saying to the man who had been healed, It is the Sabbath, and you have no right to pick up your bed [it is not lawful].
11 He answered them, The [b]Man Who healed me and gave me back my strength, He Himself said to me, Pick up your bed and walk!
12 They asked him, Who is the Man Who told you, Pick up your bed and walk?
13 Now the invalid who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had quietly gone away [had passed on unnoticed], since there was a crowd in the place.
14 Afterward, when Jesus found him in the temple, He said to him, See, you are well! Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.
15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus Who had made him well.
16 For this reason the Jews began to persecute (annoy, torment) Jesus [c]and sought to kill Him, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.
17 But Jesus answered them, My Father has worked [even] until now, [He has never ceased working; He is still working] and I, too, must be at [divine] work.
18 This made the Jews more determined than ever to kill Him [to do away with Him]; because He not only was breaking (weakening, violating) the Sabbath, but He actually was speaking of God as being [in a special sense] His own Father, making Himself equal [putting Himself on a level] with God.
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