Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

²⁰ I have found David My servant; with My holy oil have I anointed him,^(A)

²¹ With whom My hand shall be established and ever abide; My arm also shall strengthen him.

²² The enemy shall not exact from him or do him violence or outwit him, nor shall the wicked afflict and humble him.

²³ I will beat down his foes before his face and smite those who hate him.

²⁴ My faithfulness and My mercy and loving-kindness shall be with him, and in My name shall his horn be exalted [great power and prosperity shall be conferred upon him].

²⁵ I will set his hand in control also on the [Mediterranean] Sea, and his right hand on the rivers [Euphrates with its tributaries].

²⁶ He shall cry to Me, You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation!

²⁷ Also I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.^(B)

²⁸ My mercy and loving-kindness will I keep for him forevermore, and My covenant shall stand fast and be faithful with him.

²⁹ His ^[a]Offspring also will I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven.^(C)

³⁰ If his children forsake My law and walk not in My ordinances,

³¹ If they break or profane My statutes and keep not My commandments,

³² Then will I punish their transgression with the rod [of chastisement], and their iniquity with stripes.^(D)

³³ Nevertheless, My loving-kindness will I not break off from him, nor allow My faithfulness to fail [to lie and be false to him].

³⁴ My covenant will I not break or profane, nor alter the thing that is gone out of My lips.

³⁵ Once [for all] have I sworn by My holiness, which cannot be violated; I will not lie to David:

³⁶ His Offspring shall endure forever, and his throne [shall continue] as the sun before Me.^(E)

³⁷ It shall be established forever as the moon, the faithful witness in the heavens. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!^(F)

14 And Hiram king of Tyre sent messengers to David, and cedar timbers, with masons and carpenters, to build him a house.

² And David perceived that the Lord had established and confirmed him as king over Israel, for his kingdom was exalted highly for His people Israel’s sake.

¹⁶ Now while Paul was awaiting them at Athens, his spirit was grieved and roused to anger as he saw that the city was full of idols.

¹⁷ So he reasoned and argued in the synagogue with the Jews and those who worshiped there, and in the marketplace [where assemblies are held] day after day with any who chanced to be there.

¹⁸ And some also of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him and began to engage in discussion. And some said, What is this babbler with his scrap-heap learning trying to say? Others said, He seems to be an announcer of foreign deities—because he preached Jesus and the resurrection.

¹⁹ And they took hold of him and brought him to the ^[a]Areopagus [Mars Hill meeting place], saying, May we know what this novel (unheard of and unprecedented) teaching is which you are openly declaring?

²⁰ For you set forth some startling things, foreign and strange to our ears; we wish to know therefore just what these things mean—

²¹ For the Athenians, all of them, and the foreign residents and visitors among them spent all their leisure time in nothing except telling or hearing something newer than the last—

²² So Paul, standing in the center of the Areopagus [Mars Hill meeting place], said: Men of Athens, I perceive in every way [on every hand and with every turn I make] that you are most religious or very reverent to demons.

²³ For as I passed along and carefully observed your objects of worship, I came also upon an altar with this inscription, To the unknown god. Now what you are already worshiping as unknown, this I set forth to you.

²⁴ The God Who produced and formed the world and all things in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in handmade shrines.

²⁵ Neither is He served by human hands, as though He lacked anything, for it is He Himself Who gives life and breath and all things to all [people].^(A)

²⁶ And He made from one [common origin, one source, one blood] all nations of men to settle on the face of the earth, having definitely determined [their] allotted periods of time and the fixed boundaries of their habitation (their settlements, lands, and abodes),

²⁷ So that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after Him and find Him, although He is not far from each one of us.

²⁸ For in Him we live and move and have our being; as even some of your [own] poets have said, For we are also His offspring.

²⁹ Since then we are God’s offspring, we ought not to suppose that Deity (the Godhead) is like gold or silver or stone, [of the nature of] a representation by human art and imagination, or anything constructed or invented.

³⁰ Such [former] ages of ignorance God, it is true, ignored and allowed to pass unnoticed; but now He charges all people everywhere to repent (^[b]to change their minds for the better and heartily to amend their ways, with abhorrence of their past sins),

³¹ Because He has fixed a day when He will judge the world righteously (justly) by a Man Whom He has destined and appointed for that task, and He has made this credible and given conviction and assurance and evidence to everyone by raising Him from the dead.^(B)