Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 20

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

¹ May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob set you up on high [and defend you];

² Send you help from the sanctuary and support, refresh, and strengthen you from Zion;

³ Remember all your offerings and accept your burnt sacrifice. Selah [pause, and think of that]!

⁴ May He grant you according to your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans.

⁵ We will [shout in] triumph at your salvation and victory, and in the name of our God we will set up our banners. May the Lord fulfill all your petitions.

⁶ Now I know that the Lord saves His anointed; He will answer him from His holy heaven with the saving strength of His right hand.

⁷ Some trust in and boast of chariots and some of horses, but we will trust in and boast of the name of the Lord our God.

⁸ They are bowed down and fallen, but we are risen and stand upright.

⁹ O Lord, give victory; let the King answer us when we call.

13 Saul was ^[a][forty] years old when he began to reign; and when he had reigned two years over Israel,

² Saul chose 3,000 men of Israel; 2,000 were with [him] in Michmash and the hill country of Bethel, and 1,000 with Jonathan in Gibeah of Benjamin. The rest of the men he sent away, each one to his home.

³ Jonathan smote the Philistine garrison at Geba, and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, Let the Hebrews hear!

⁴ All Israel heard that Saul had defeated the Philistine garrison and also that Israel had become an abomination to the Philistines. And the people were called out to join Saul at Gilgal.

⁵ And the Philistines gathered to fight with Israel, 30,000 chariots and 6,000 horsemen and troops like sand on the seashore in multitude. They came up and encamped at Michmash, east of Beth-aven.

⁶ When the men of Israel saw that they were in a tight situation—for their troops were hard pressed—they hid in caves, holes, rocks, tombs, and pits or cisterns.

⁷ Some Hebrews had gone over the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul, he was still in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.

⁸ Saul waited seven days, according to the set time Samuel had appointed. But Samuel had not come to Gilgal, and the people were scattering from Saul.

⁹ So Saul said, Bring me the burnt offering and the peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering [which he was forbidden to do].

¹⁰ And just as he finished offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came! Saul went out to meet and greet him.

¹¹ Samuel said, What have you done? Saul said, Because I saw that the people were scattering from me, and that you did not come within the days appointed, and that the Philistines were assembled at Michmash,

¹² I thought, The Philistines will come down now upon me to Gilgal, and I have not made supplication to the Lord. So I forced myself to offer a burnt offering.

¹³ And Samuel said to Saul, You have done foolishly! You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God which He commanded you; for the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever;

¹⁴ But now your kingdom shall not continue; the Lord has sought out [David] a man after His own ^[b]heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be prince and ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.

¹⁵ And Samuel went up from Gilgal to Gibeah of Benjamin. And Saul numbered the people that were left with him, [only] about 600.

4 Again Jesus began to teach beside the lake. And a very great crowd gathered about Him, so that He got into a ship in order to sit in it on the sea, and the whole crowd was at the lakeside on the shore.

² And He taught them many things in parables (illustrations or comparisons put beside truths to explain them), and in His teaching He said to them:

³ Give attention to this! Behold, a sower went out to sow.

⁴ And as he was sowing, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.

⁵ Other seed [of the same kind] fell on ground full of rocks, where it had not much soil; and at once it sprang up, because it had no depth of soil;

⁶ And when the sun came up, it was scorched, and because it had not taken root, it withered away.

⁷ Other seed [of the same kind] fell among thorn plants, and the thistles grew and pressed together and utterly choked and suffocated it, and it yielded no grain.

⁸ And other seed [of the same kind] fell into good (well-adapted) soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing, and yielded up to thirty times as much, and sixty times as much, and even a hundred times as much as had been sown.

⁹ And He said, He who has ears to hear, let him be hearing [and let him ^[a]consider, and comprehend].

¹⁰ And as soon as He was alone, those who were around Him, with the Twelve [apostles], began to ask Him about the parables.

¹¹ And He said to them, To you has been entrusted the mystery of the kingdom of God [that is, ^[b]the secret counsels of God which are hidden from the ungodly]; but for those outside [^[c]of our circle] everything becomes a parable,

¹² In order that they may [indeed] look and look but not see and perceive, and may hear and hear but not grasp and comprehend, ^[d]lest haply they should turn again, and it [^[e]their willful rejection of the truth] should be forgiven them.^(A)

¹³ And He said to them, Do you not discern and understand this parable? How then is it possible for you to discern and understand all the parables?

¹⁴ The sower sows the Word.

¹⁵ The ones along the path are those who have the Word sown [in their hearts], but when they hear, Satan comes at once and [by force] takes away the message which is sown in them.

¹⁶ And in the same way the ones sown upon stony ground are those who, when they hear the Word, at once receive and accept and welcome it with joy;

¹⁷ And they have no real root in themselves, and so they endure for a little while; then when trouble or persecution arises on account of the Word, they immediately are offended (become displeased, indignant, resentful) and they stumble and fall away.

¹⁸ And the ones sown among the thorns are others who hear the Word;

¹⁹ Then the cares and anxieties of the world and distractions of the age, and the pleasure and delight and false glamour and deceitfulness of riches, and the craving and passionate desire for other things creep in and choke and suffocate the Word, and it becomes fruitless.

²⁰ And those sown on the good (well-adapted) soil are the ones who hear the Word and receive and accept and welcome it and bear fruit—some thirty times as much as was sown, some sixty times as much, and some [even] a hundred times as much.