Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A Prayer for Guidance and Protection

For the music director; with the flutes. A psalm of David.^[a]

²³ The servants of the king of Aram said to him, “Their gods are gods of the mountains, therefore they were stronger than we.^[a] Let us fight with them in the plain; surely we will be stronger than they. ²⁴ Do this thing: remove the kings each from his post, and put a governor in their place. ²⁵ You must muster an army for yourself as the army you have lost,^[b] and horses and chariots as the horses and chariots you lost, then we will fight them in the plain. Surely we will be stronger than they.” So he listened to their voice and did so.

²⁶ It happened at the turning of the year that Ben-Hadad mustered Aram and went up to Aphek for the war with Israel. ²⁷ The Israelites^[c] had been mustered and provisioned, and they went to engage them. The Israelites^[d] encamped opposite them as two flocks of goats, but the Arameans filled the land. ²⁸ Then the man of God approached, and he spoke to the king of Israel, and he said, “Thus says Yahweh: ‘Because Aram has said, “Yahweh is a god of the mountains and not a god of the valleys,”’ I will give all this great crowd into your hand that you may know that I am Yahweh.” ²⁹ These encamped opposite for seven days, and it happened on the seventh day that the battle began,^[e] and the Israelites^[f] killed the Arameans, one hundred thousand infantry in one day. ³⁰ Then those who remained fled to Aphek, to the city, and the wall fell on twenty-seven thousand men who had remained, so Ben-Hadad fled and went to the innermost rooms of the city.

³¹ Then his servants said to him, “Please now, we have heard that the kings of the house of Israel are kings of mercy. Let us now put sackcloth on around our waists and ropes on our heads. Then let us go out to the king of Israel. Perhaps he will let you live.”^{[g] 32} So they tied sackcloth around their waists and ropes on their heads. Then they went to the king of Israel and said, “Your servant Ben-Hadad says, ‘Please let me live.’” And he said, “Is my brother still alive?” ³³ The men took this as a good omen and they quickly accepted it as true from him, and they said, “Your brother Ben-Hadad lives.” So he said, “Go, get him.” Ben-Hadad came out to him, and Ahab pulled him up on the chariot. ³⁴ Ben-Hadad said to him, “The cities which my father took from your father I shall return. You may set up streets with stalls for yourself in Damascus just as my father set up in Samaria.” Then Ahab said, “On these terms^[h] I will let you go,” So he made a covenant with him and let him go.

A Remnant of Israel Remains

11 Therefore I say, God has not rejected his people, has he?^[a] May it never be! For I also am an Israelite, from the descendants of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. ² God has not rejected his people, whom he foreknew! Or do you not know, in the passage about^[b] Elijah, what the scripture says—how he appeals to God against Israel? ³ “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have torn down your altars, and I alone am left, and they are seeking my life!”^{[c] 4} But what does the divine response say to him? “I have left for myself seven thousand people^[d] who have not bent the knee to Baal.”^{[e] 5} So in this way also at the present time, there is a remnant selected by grace^[f]. ⁶ But if by grace, it is no longer by works, for otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

⁷ What then? What Israel was searching for, this it did not obtain. But the elect obtained it, and the rest were hardened, ⁸ just as it is written,

⁹ And David says,