Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
140 O Lord, deliver me from evil men. Preserve me from the violent, 2 who plot and stir up trouble all day long. 3 Their words sting like poisonous snakes. 4 Keep me out of their power. Preserve me from their violence, for they are plotting against me. 5 These proud men have set a trap to catch me, a noose to yank me up and leave me dangling in the air; they wait in ambush with a net to throw over and hold me helpless in its meshes.
6-8 O Jehovah, my Lord and Savior, my God and my shield—hear me as I pray! Don’t let these wicked men succeed; don’t let them prosper and be proud. 9 Let their plots boomerang! Let them be destroyed by the very evil they have planned for me. 10 Let burning coals fall down upon their heads, or throw them into the fire or into deep pits from which they can’t escape.
11 Don’t let liars prosper here in our land; quickly punish them. 12 But the Lord will surely help those they persecute; he will maintain the rights of the poor. 13 Surely the godly are thanking you, for they shall live in your presence.
5 Three days later Esther put on her royal robes and entered the inner court just beyond the royal hall of the palace, where the king was sitting upon his royal throne. 2 And when he saw Queen Esther standing there in the inner court, he welcomed her, holding out the golden scepter to her. So Esther approached and touched its tip.
3 Then the king asked her, “What do you wish, Queen Esther? What is your request? I will give it to you, even if it is half the kingdom!”
4 And Esther replied, “If it please Your Majesty, I want you and Haman to come to a banquet I have prepared for you today.”
5 The king turned to his aides. “Tell Haman to hurry!” he said. So the king and Haman came to Esther’s banquet.
6 During the wine course the king said to Esther, “Now tell me what you really want, and I will give it to you, even if it is half of the kingdom!”
7-8 Esther replied, “My request, my deepest wish, is that if Your Majesty loves me and wants to grant my request, that you come again with Haman tomorrow to the banquet I shall prepare for you. And tomorrow I will explain what this is all about.”
9 What a happy man was Haman as he left the banquet! But when he saw Mordecai there at the gate, not standing up or trembling before him, he was furious. 10 However, he restrained himself, went on home, and gathered together his friends and Zeresh, his wife, 11 and boasted to them about his wealth, his many children, and promotions the king had given him, and how he had become the greatest man in the kingdom next to the king himself.
12 Then he delivered his punch line: “Yes, and Esther the queen invited only me and the king himself to the banquet she prepared for us; and tomorrow we are invited again! 13 But yet,” he added, “all this is nothing when I see Mordecai the Jew just sitting there in front of the king’s gate, refusing to bow to me.”
14 “Well,” suggested Zeresh, his wife, and all his friends, “get ready a 75-foot-high gallows, and in the morning ask the king to let you hang Mordecai on it; and when this is done you can go on your merry way with the king to the banquet.” This pleased Haman immensely, and he ordered the gallows built.
18 Dear children, this world’s last hour has come. You have heard about the Antichrist who is coming—the one who is against Christ—and already many such persons have appeared. This makes us all the more certain that the end of the world is near. 19 These “against-Christ” people used to be members of our churches, but they never really belonged with us or else they would have stayed. When they left us it proved that they were not of us at all.
20 But you are not like that, for the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you know the truth. 21 So I am not writing to you as to those who need to know the truth, but I warn you as those who can discern the difference between true and false.
22 And who is the greatest liar? The one who says that Jesus is not Christ. Such a person is antichrist, for he does not believe in God the Father and in his Son. 23 For a person who doesn’t believe in Christ, God’s Son, can’t have God the Father either. But he who has Christ, God’s Son, has God the Father also.
24 So keep on believing what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will always be in close fellowship with both God the Father and his Son. 25 And he himself has promised us this: eternal life.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.