Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
To the director: A praise song of David.
68 God, get up and scatter your enemies!
May all your enemies run from you.
2 May your enemies be scattered
like smoke blown away by the wind.
May your enemies be destroyed
like wax melting in a fire.
3 But let good people be happy.
Let them gather before God and enjoy themselves together.
4 Sing to God! Sing praises to his name!
Prepare the way for the one who rides on the clouds.
His name is Yah.[a]
Worship before him with joy.
5 God, who lives in his holy palace, is a father to orphans,
and he takes care of widows.
6 God provides homes for those who are lonely.
He frees people from prison and makes them happy.
But those who turn against him will live in the desert.
7 God, you led your people out of Egypt.
You marched across the desert. Selah
8 The ground shook and rain poured from the sky
when God, the God of Israel, came to Sinai.
9 God, you sent the rain
to make a tired, old land strong again.
10 Your people[b] came back to live there,
and you provided good things for the poor.
19 Praise the Lord!
Every day he helps us with the loads we must carry.
He is the God who saves us. Selah
20 He is our God, the God who saves us.
My Lord God saves us from death.
Eliphaz Answers Job
22 Then Eliphaz from Teman answered:
2 “Does God need our help?
Even the wisest of us is not really useful to him.
3 Does your living right benefit him?
Does God All-Powerful gain anything if you follow him?
4 Why does God blame and punish you?
Is it because you worship him?
5 No, it is because you sin so much.
You never stop sinning.
6 Maybe to guarantee loans you took things from people for no reason.
Maybe you took a poor man’s clothes to make sure he paid you back.[a]
7 Maybe you failed to give water or food
to people who were tired or hungry.
8 You have a lot of farmland,
and people respect you.
9 But maybe you sent widows away without giving them anything.
And maybe you took advantage of orphans.
10 That is why traps are all around you,
and sudden trouble makes you afraid.
11 That is why it is so dark you cannot see,
and why a flood of water covers you.
12 “God lives in the highest part of heaven
and looks down on the highest stars.
13 But you might say, ‘What does God know?
Can he see through the dark clouds to judge us?
14 Thick clouds hide us from his eyes,
so he cannot see us as he walks around the edge of the sky.’
15 “Job, you are walking on the old path
that evil people walked on long ago.
16 They were destroyed before it was their time to die.
They were washed away by the flood.
17 They told God, ‘Leave us alone!’
and said, ‘God All-Powerful cannot do anything to us!’
18 And it was God who filled their houses with good things.
No, I would never follow the advice of evil people.
19 Those who do what is right are happy to see them destroyed.
The innocent laugh at them and say,
20 ‘Surely our enemies are destroyed!
Their wealth burned up in the fire!’
The Other Apostles Accepted Paul
2 After 14 years I went back to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus with me. 2 I went there because God showed me that I should go. I explained to them the message that I tell the non-Jewish people. I also met alone with those who were considered to be the leaders. I wanted to be sure we were in agreement so that my past work and the work I do now would not be wasted.
3 Titus, who was with me, is a Greek. But these leaders still did not force him to be circumcised. 4 We needed to talk about these problems, because some who pretended to be our brothers had come into our group secretly. They came in like spies to find out about the freedom we have in Christ Jesus. They wanted to make us slaves, 5 but we did not agree with anything those false brothers wanted. We wanted the truth of the Good News to continue for you.
6 Those men who were considered to be important did not change the Good News message I tell people. (It doesn’t matter to me if they were “important” or not. To God everyone is the same.) 7 But these leaders saw that God had given me a special work, the same as Peter. God gave Peter the work of telling the Good News to the Jews. But God gave me the work of telling the Good News to the non-Jewish people. 8 God gave Peter the power to work as an apostle for the Jewish people. God gave me the power to work as an apostle too, but for those who are not Jews. 9 James, Peter, and John seemed to be the leaders. And they saw that God had given me this special gift of ministry, so they accepted Barnabas and me. They said to us, “We agree that you should go to those who are not Jews, and we will go to the Jews.” 10 They asked us to do only one thing—to remember to help those who are poor. And this was something that I really wanted to do.
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International