Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

30 I will praise you, Lord, for you have saved me from my enemies. You refuse to let them triumph over me. ² O Lord my God, I pleaded with you, and you gave me my health again. ³ You brought me back from the brink of the grave, from death itself, and here I am alive!

⁴ Oh, sing to him you saints of his; give thanks to his holy name. ⁵ His anger lasts a moment; his favor lasts for life! Weeping may go on all night, but in the morning there is joy.

^6-7 In my prosperity I said, “This is forever; nothing can stop me now! The Lord has shown me his favor. He has made me steady as a mountain.” Then, Lord, you turned your face away from me and cut off your river of blessings.^[a] Suddenly my courage was gone; I was terrified and panic-stricken. ⁸ I cried to you, O Lord; oh, how I pled: ⁹ “What will you gain, O Lord, from killing me? How can I praise you then to all my friends? How can my dust in the grave speak out and tell the world about your faithfulness? ¹⁰ Hear me, Lord; oh, have pity and help me.” ¹¹ Then he turned my sorrow into joy! He took away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy ¹² so that I might sing glad praises to the Lord instead of lying in silence in the grave. O Lord my God, I will keep on thanking you forever!

14 ^1-2 And the Lord gave Moses these regulations concerning a person whose leprosy disappears:

³ “The priest shall go out of the camp to examine him. If the priest sees that the leprosy is gone, ⁴ he shall require two living birds of a kind permitted for food, and shall take some cedar wood, a scarlet string, and some hyssop branches, to be used for the purification ceremony of the one who is healed. ⁵ The priest shall then order one of the birds killed in an earthenware pot held above running water. ⁶ The other bird, still living, shall be dipped in the blood, along with the cedar wood, the scarlet thread, and the hyssop branch. ⁷ Then the priest shall sprinkle the blood seven times upon the man cured of his leprosy, and the priest shall pronounce him cured, and shall let the living bird fly into the open field.

⁸ “Then the man who is cured shall wash his clothes, shave off all his hair, and bathe himself, and return to live inside the camp; however, he must stay outside his tent for seven days. ⁹ The seventh day he shall again shave all the hair from his head, beard, and eyebrows, and wash his clothes and bathe, and shall then be declared fully cured of his leprosy.

¹⁰ “The next day, the eighth day, he shall take two male lambs without physical defect, one yearling ewe-lamb without physical defect, ten quarts of finely ground flour mixed with olive oil, and a pint of olive oil; ¹¹ then the priest who examines him shall place the man and his offerings before the Lord at the entrance of the Tabernacle. ¹² The priest shall take one of the lambs and the pint of olive oil and offer them to the Lord as a guilt offering by the gesture of waving them before the altar. ¹³ Then he shall kill the lamb at the place where sin offerings and burnt offerings are killed, there at the Tabernacle; this guilt offering shall then be given to the priest for food, as in the case of a sin offering. It is a most holy offering. ¹⁴ The priest shall take the blood from this guilt offering and smear some of it upon the tip of the right ear of the man being cleansed, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the big toe of his right foot.

¹⁵ “Then the priest shall take the olive oil and pour it into the palm of his left hand, ¹⁶ and dip his right finger into it, and sprinkle it with his finger seven times before the Lord. ¹⁷ Some of the oil remaining in his left hand shall then be placed by the priest upon the tip of the man’s right ear and the thumb of his right hand and the big toe of his right foot—just as he did with the blood of the guilt offering. ¹⁸ The remainder of the oil in his hand shall be used to anoint the man’s head. Thus the priest shall make atonement for him before the Lord.

¹⁹ “Then the priest must offer the sin offering and again^[a] perform the rite of atonement for the person being cleansed from his leprosy; and afterwards the priest shall kill the burnt offering, ²⁰ and offer it along with the grain offering upon the altar, making atonement for the man, who shall then be pronounced finally cleansed.

¹¹ And God gave Paul the power to do unusual miracles, ¹² so that even when his handkerchiefs or parts of his clothing were placed upon sick people, they were healed, and any demons within them came out.

¹³ A team of itinerant Jews who were traveling from town to town casting out demons planned to experiment by using the name of the Lord Jesus. The incantation they decided on was this: “I adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preaches, to come out!” ¹⁴ Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish priest, were doing this. ¹⁵ But when they tried it on a man possessed by a demon, the demon replied, “I know Jesus and I know Paul, but who are you?” ¹⁶ And he leaped on two of them and beat them up, so that they fled out of his house naked and badly injured.

¹⁷ The story of what happened spread quickly all through Ephesus, to Jews and Greeks alike; and a solemn fear descended on the city, and the name of the Lord Jesus was greatly honored. ^18-19 Many of the believers who had been practicing black magic confessed their deeds and brought their incantation books and charms and burned them at a public bonfire. (Someone estimated the value of the books at $10,000.$10,000, approximately £3,500.) ²⁰ This indicates how deeply the whole area was stirred by God’s message.