Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

The Lord an Abundant Helper.

¹⁷ Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ¹⁸ “Speak to the Israelites and say to them, ‘When you enter the land to which I am bringing you, ¹⁹ then, when you eat the food of the land, you shall lift up an offering (heave offering) to the Lord. ²⁰ You shall lift up a cake made of the first of your [ground grain which has been made into] dough as an offering [to the Lord]; as an offering from the threshing floor, so shall you lift it up. ²¹ From the first of your dough (ground grain) you shall give to the Lord an offering throughout your generations.

²² ‘But when you unintentionally fail and do not observe all these commandments, which the Lord has spoken to Moses, ²³ even all that the Lord has commanded you ^[a]through Moses, from the day that the Lord gave commandments and onward throughout your generations, ²⁴ then it shall be, if it was done unintentionally without the knowledge of the congregation, that all the congregation shall offer one young bull as a burnt offering, as a sweet and soothing aroma to the Lord, with its grain offering and its drink offering, according to the ordinance, and one male goat as a sin offering. ²⁵ Then the priest shall make atonement for all the congregation of the sons of Israel, and they will be forgiven, for it was an error and they have brought their offering, an offering by fire to the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord, for their error. ²⁶ So all the congregation of the Israelites will be forgiven as well as the stranger who lives among them as a resident alien, because all the people were involved in the error.

Paul’s Defense before Agrippa

26 Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You are [now] permitted to speak on your own behalf.” At that, Paul stretched out his hand [as an orator] and made his defense [as follows]:

² “I consider myself fortunate, King Agrippa, since it is before you that I am to make my defense today regarding all the charges brought against me by the Jews, ³ especially because you are an expert [fully knowledgeable, experienced and unusually conversant] in all the Jewish customs and controversial issues; therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently.

⁴ “So then, all the Jews know my manner of life from my youth up, which from the beginning was spent among my own nation [the Jewish people], and in Jerusalem. ⁵ They have known me for a long time, if they are willing to testify to it, that according to the ^[a]strictest sect of our religion, I have lived as a Pharisee. ⁶ And now I am standing trial for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers.^{(A) 7} Which hope [of the Messiah and the resurrection] our twelve tribes [confidently] expect to realize as they serve and worship God in earnest night and day. And for this hope, O King, I am being accused by Jews! ⁸ Why is it thought incredible by [any of] you that God raises the dead?

⁹ “So then, I [once] thought to myself that it was my duty to do many things in opposition to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. ¹⁰ And this is just what I did in Jerusalem; I not only locked up many of the saints (God’s people) in prison after receiving authority from the chief priests, but also when they were being condemned to death, I ^[b]cast my vote against them. ¹¹ And I often punished them [making them suffer] in all the synagogues and tried to force them to blaspheme; and in my extreme rage at them, I kept hunting them even to foreign cities [harassing and persecuting them].