Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A song to sing as we climb.

I have great trouble

Joseph's brothers return to Egypt

43 The famine was still bad in Canaan. ² Jacob's family ate all the food that they had brought from Egypt. So Jacob said to his sons, ‘Go back to Egypt, and buy some more food for us.’^{[a] 3} But Judah said, ‘The man told us many times, “Unless your brother is with you, I will not let you see me again.” ⁴ So you must send Benjamin with us. Then we will go and buy food for you. ⁵ But if you do not send Benjamin, we will not go. The man clearly said to us, “Unless your brother is with you, you will not see me again.” ’

⁶ Jacob said to them, ‘You have brought great trouble to me! You should not have told the man that you had another brother.’ ⁷ The brothers replied, ‘The man asked us many questions about our family. He asked us, “Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?” We only answered his questions. We did not know that he would say, “Bring your brother here.” ’

⁸ Then Judah said to his father Jacob, ‘Agree to send the boy with me. We will go to Egypt immediately. Then all our family can continue to live. We will not die.^{[b] 9} I promise you to keep Benjamin safe. I myself will take care of him and I will bring him back to you. If I do not bring him back home, then you should say that I am guilty. I will be guilty for all of my life. ¹⁰ We must go now! We have already talked for too long. By now, we could have gone to Egypt and returned twice!’

¹¹ Then their father Jacob said to them, ‘If you must take Benjamin, do what I tell you. Put some of the best things from our land in your bags. Take them to the man as a gift. Take some oil, some honey and some spices. Also take some myrrh, and some nuts.^{[c] 12} Also take twice the amount of money with you. You must give back the money that they put back into your bags last time. It may have been a mistake. ¹³ Take your brother Benjamin too. Go back to the man now. ¹⁴ I pray that God Almighty will help you. I pray that God will cause the man to be kind to you. Then he will let your older brother go free. He and Benjamin will return here with you. As for me, if I must lose my sons, then I will lose them. There is nothing that I can do to stop it.’

¹⁵ So the brothers took the gifts, and they took twice as much money with them. They took Benjamin and they hurried to Egypt. When they arrived there, they went to meet Joseph.

¹⁶ Joseph saw that Benjamin was with them. So he said to his servant who took care of his house, ‘Take these men to my house. Kill an animal and prepare it for a meal. These men will eat with me at noon.’ ¹⁷ The servant did as Joseph told him. He took the men to Joseph's house.

¹⁸ The brothers were frightened when the servant took them to Joseph's house. They thought, ‘He has brought us here because of the money that we found in our bags last time. Someone put it there before we returned home. Now he wants to punish us. He will take us to be his slaves. He will take our donkeys too.’

¹⁹ So the brothers went to Joseph's servant. They spoke to him at the door of Joseph's house before they went in. ²⁰ They said, ‘Please sir. The first time we came here, we came to buy food. ²¹ But on our journey back, we stopped at a place to sleep for the night. When we opened our bags, each of us found our money there. It was the same amount of money that each of us had taken to buy food in Egypt. The money was in the top of our bags. Now we have brought the money back here. ²² We have also brought more money so that we can buy more food. We do not know who put the money back into our bags.’

²³ The servant replied, ‘Do not worry. Everything is all right. Your God, the God of your father, put the valuable silver coins there. I received your money. No problem!’ Then the servant brought Simeon out to see his brothers.

²⁴ The servant took the men into Joseph's house. He gave them water to wash their feet. He also gave food to their donkeys. ²⁵ The brothers prepared their gifts to give to Joseph when he would arrive at noon. The servant had told them that they would eat a meal there.

²⁶ When Joseph arrived home, the brothers gave him the gifts that they had brought with them. They bent down low to the ground in front of him. ²⁷ Joseph asked them if they were well. Then he said, ‘You told me last time about your old father. How is he? Is he still alive?’ ²⁸ The brothers replied, ‘Your servant, our father, is still alive. And he is well.’ They bent down to the ground again, to respect Joseph.

²⁹ Then Joseph saw his brother Benjamin, his own mother's son.^[d] Joseph asked, ‘Is this your youngest brother? Is he the one that you told me about?’ Joseph said to Benjamin, ‘I pray that God will bless you, my son.’ ³⁰ Joseph loved Benjamin very much. He quickly went out of the room because he wanted to weep. Joseph went into his own room and he wept there. ³¹ After that, he washed his face. He returned to his brothers. He controlled himself and he said, ‘Prepare the food for them to eat.’ ³² The servants gave food to Joseph at his own table. The brothers sat together at a different table. And the Egyptians who ate there also sat together. The Egyptians could not eat a meal with Hebrews, because that would make the Egyptians ashamed. ³³ The brothers sat in a place where Joseph could see them. The servants told each of them where to sit, by their age. The oldest brother was at one end, all along to the youngest brother at the other end. The brothers were very surprised to see this.^[e]

³⁴ Then the servants took food from Joseph's table and they gave it to the brothers. Benjamin received the biggest amount of food. It was five times more than any of his brothers. The brothers also drank wine with Joseph and they were all very happy.

Paul and Barnabas go to Jerusalem

15 Some men arrived in Antioch from Judea.^[a] They began to teach the believers there who were not Jews. They said to them, ‘God cannot save you unless someone circumcises you. This is in the Law that God gave to Moses.’

² Paul and Barnabas did not agree with these men. They argued strongly against them. As a result, the believers in Antioch decided what to do. They chose Paul, Barnabas and some of the other believers to go to Jerusalem. They should go to meet with the apostles and the other leaders of the believers. The leaders should decide who was right in this quarrel. ³ The group of believers at Antioch sent Paul, Barnabas and the other men on their way. They travelled through Phoenicia and Samaria. They spoke to the believers in those places. They told them, ‘Gentiles are also turning to God and they are believing in Jesus.’ The believers were all very happy to hear this news. ⁴ When Paul, Barnabas and the other men arrived in Jerusalem, they met with the believers there. The apostles, the other leaders and the whole group of believers were happy to see them. Paul and Barnabas told them about everything that God had helped them to do.

⁵ Some Jewish believers were there who also belonged to the Pharisees' group. They stood up and they said, ‘We must circumcise Gentiles when they become believers. We must tell them to obey all the Law that God gave to Moses.’

⁶ So the apostles and the other leaders of the believers met to talk about this problem. ⁷ After they had all talked about this problem for a long time, Peter stood up to speak.^[b] He said, ‘My friends, you know that, a long time ago, God chose me from among all you leaders. He wanted me to teach Gentiles the good news about Jesus. God wanted them to hear his message and to believe in Jesus. ⁸ God knows what people truly believe. He showed clearly that he accepts Gentile believers as his people. He gave his Holy Spirit to them in the same way that he did for us. ⁹ He made no difference between them and us. When they believed in Jesus, he saved them. He made them clean inside.

¹⁰ So do not say that God has done a wrong thing. God has shown us that he accepts Gentiles when they believe in Jesus. If you make the Gentile believers obey the Law of Moses, that is like a heavy weight on their necks. Even we Jews and our ancestors could not carry that heavy weight. ¹¹ God saves us who are Jews when we believe in Jesus. It is not because we obey the Law of Moses. It is because the Lord Jesus is kind to us. God saves Gentiles in the same way, when they believe in Jesus.’

¹² After Peter said this everybody in the group was quiet. Then Barnabas and Paul spoke to them. They said, ‘God helped us to do great miracles among the Gentiles. These showed that God was with us.’

¹³ When they had finished their report, James spoke to the group. He said, ‘Listen to me, my friends. ¹⁴ Simon Peter has just described to us what happened first with the Gentile believers. He explained how God chose some of them to belong to him as his own people.

¹⁵ The message of God's prophets agrees completely with this. They wrote long ago:

¹⁶ The Lord God said,

¹⁹ James then said, ‘So this is what I have decided about this problem. Many Gentiles are now turning to God as believers. We should not make it difficult for them. ²⁰ Instead of that, we should write a letter to tell them how to live as believers. We should say to them, “Do not eat any food which people have given to their idols. That food has become unclean. Do not have sex with anyone that you are not married to. If people have strangled an animal to kill it, do not eat its meat. Do not eat anything that still has blood in it.”^{[e] 21} These rules are important, because people have known the Law of Moses for a very long time. On every Jewish day of rest, someone teaches us about the Law in our Jewish meeting places in every city.’