Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
38 O Lord, don’t punish me while you are angry! 2 Your arrows have struck deep; your blows are crushing me. 3-4 Because of your anger, my body is sick, my health is broken beneath my sins. They are like a flood, higher than my head; they are a burden too heavy to bear. 5-6 My wounds are festering and full of pus. Because of my sins, I am bent and racked with pain. My days are filled with anguish. 7 My loins burn with inflammation,[a] and my whole body is diseased. 8 I am exhausted and crushed; I groan in despair.[b]
9 Lord, you know how I long for my health once more. You hear my every sigh. 10 My heart beats wildly, my strength fails, and I am going blind. 11 My loved ones and friends stay away, fearing my disease. Even my own family stands at a distance.
12 Meanwhile my enemies are trying to kill me. They plot my ruin and spend all their waking hours planning treachery. 13-14 But I am deaf to all their threats; I am silent before them as a man who cannot speak. I have nothing to say. 15 For I am waiting for you, O Lord my God. Come and protect me. 16 Put an end to their arrogance, these who gloat when I am cast down!
17 How constantly I find myself upon the verge of sin;[c] this source of sorrow always stares me in the face. 18 I confess my sins; I am sorry for what I have done. 19 But my enemies persecute with vigor and continue to hate me—though I have done nothing against them to deserve it. 20 They repay me evil for good and hate me for standing for the right.
21 Don’t leave me, Lord; don’t go away! 22 Come quickly! Help me, O my Savior.
18 Yet the Lord still waits for you to come to him so he can show you his love; he will conquer you to bless you, just as he said. For the Lord is faithful to his promises. Blessed are all those who wait for him to help them.
19 O my people in Jerusalem, you shall weep no more, for he will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. He will answer you. 20 Though he give you the bread of adversity and water of affliction, yet he will be with you to teach you—with your own eyes you will see your Teacher. 21 And if you leave God’s paths and go astray, you will hear a voice behind you say, “No, this is the way; walk here.” 22 And you will destroy all your silver idols and gold images and cast them out like filthy things you hate to touch. “Ugh!” you’ll say to them. “Be gone!”
23 Then God will bless you with rain at planting time and with wonderful harvests and with ample pastures for your cows. 24 The oxen and young donkeys that till the ground will eat grain, its chaff blown away by the wind. 25 In that day when God steps in to destroy your enemies, he will give you streams of water flowing down each mountain and every hill. 26 The moon will be as bright as the sun, and the sunlight brighter than seven days! So it will be when the Lord begins to heal his people and to cure the wounds he gave them.
8 While they were at Lystra, they came upon a man with crippled feet who had been that way from birth, so he had never walked. 9 He was listening as Paul preached, and Paul noticed him and realized he had faith to be healed. 10 So Paul called to him, “Stand up!” and the man leaped to his feet and started walking!
11 When the listening crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted (in their local dialect, of course), “These men are gods in human bodies!” 12 They decided that Barnabas was the Greek god Jupiter, and that Paul, because he was the chief speaker, was Mercury! 13 The local priest of the Temple of Jupiter, located on the outskirts of the city, brought them cartloads of flowers and prepared to sacrifice oxen to them at the city gates before the crowds.
14 But when Barnabas and Paul saw what was happening, they ripped at their clothing in dismay and ran out among the people, shouting, 15 “Men! What are you doing? We are merely human beings like yourselves! We have come to bring you the Good News that you are invited to turn from the worship of these foolish things and to pray instead to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. 16 In bygone days he permitted the nations to go their own ways, 17 but he never left himself without a witness; there were always his reminders—the kind things he did such as sending you rain and good crops and giving you food and gladness.”
18 But even so, Paul and Barnabas could scarcely restrain the people from sacrificing to them!
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.