Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Prayer for Vindication and Protection

A prayer of David.^[a]

²² And on the third day it was told to Laban that Jacob had fled. ²³ Then he took his kinsmen with him and pursued after him, a seven-day journey, and he caught up with him in the hill country of Gilead. ²⁴ And God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream at night and said to him, “Take care^[a] that you not speak with Jacob, whether good or evil.” ²⁵ And Laban overtook Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country, and Laban and his kinsmen pitched their tents in the hill country of Gilead. ²⁶ Then Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done that you tricked me^[b] and have carried off my daughters like captives of the sword? ²⁷ Why did you hide your intention to flee and trick me,^[c] and did not tell me so that I would have sent you away with joy and song and tambourine and lyre? ²⁸ And why did you not give me opportunity to kiss my grandsons^[d] and my daughters goodbye? Now you have behaved foolishly by doing this. ²⁹ It is in my power^[e] to do harm to you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night saying, ‘Take care^[f] from speaking with Jacob, whether good or evil.’ ³⁰ Now, you have surely gone because you desperately longed for the house of your father, but why did you steal my gods?” ³¹ Then Jacob answered and said to Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I thought, ‘Lest you take your daughters from me by force.’ ³² But with whomever you find your gods, he shall not live. In the presence of your kinsmen now identify what is with me that is yours and take it.” Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them. ³³ Then Laban went into Jacob’s tent and Leah’s tent and the tent of the two female servants and did not find his gods. And he came out of Leah’s tent and went into Rachel’s tent. ³⁴ Now Rachel had taken the idols and put them in the saddle bag of the camel and sat on them. And Jacob searched the whole tent thoroughly but did not find them. ³⁵ And she said to her father, “Let there not be anger in the eyes of my lord, for I am not able to rise before you, for the way of women is with me. And he searched carefully and did not find the idols. ³⁶ Then Jacob became angry and quarreled with Laban. Jacob answered and said to Laban, “What is my offense? What is my sin that you pursued after me? ³⁷ For you have searched all my possessions and what did you find among all the possessions of my household? Set it before my kinsmen and your kinsmen that they may decide between the two of us! ³⁸ These twenty years I was with you; your ewes and your female goats did not miscarry, and the rams of your flocks I did not eat. ³⁹ I brought no mangled carcass to you—I bore its loss. From my hand you sought it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. ⁴⁰ There I was, during the day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night, and my sleep fled from my eyes. ⁴¹ These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. ⁴² If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac had not been with me, indeed now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God saw my misery and the labor of my hands and rebuked you last night.”

Paul Wants to Visit Rome

⁸ First, I give thanks to my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being proclaimed in the whole world. ⁹ For God, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, is my witness, how constantly I make mention of you, ¹⁰ always asking in my prayers if somehow now at last I may succeed to come to you in the will of God. ¹¹ For I desire to see you, in order that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, in order to strengthen you, ¹² that is, to be encouraged together with you through our mutual faith^[a], both yours and mine. ¹³ Now I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, that often I intended to come to you, and was prevented until now, in order that I might have some fruit among you also, just as also among the rest of the Gentiles.^{[b] 14} I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. ¹⁵ Thus I am eager^[c] to proclaim the gospel also to you who are in Rome.