Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

113 Hallelujah! O servants of Jehovah, praise his name. ² Blessed is his name forever and forever. ³ Praise him from sunrise to sunset! ⁴ For he is high above the nations; his glory is far greater than the heavens.

⁵ Who can be compared with God enthroned on high? ⁶ Far below him are the heavens and the earth; he stoops to look, ⁷ and lifts the poor from the dirt and the hungry from the garbage dump, ⁸ and sets them among princes! ⁹ He gives children to the childless wife, so that she becomes a happy mother.

Hallelujah! Praise the Lord.

¹¹ There he made the camels kneel down outside the town, beside a spring. It was evening, and the women of the village were coming to draw water.

¹² “O Jehovah, the God of my master,” he prayed, “show kindness to my master Abraham and help me to accomplish the purpose of my journey. ¹³ See, here I am, standing beside this spring, and the girls of the village are coming out to draw water. ¹⁴ This is my request: When I ask one of them for a drink and she says, ‘Yes, certainly, and I will water your camels too!’—let her be the one you have appointed as Isaac’s wife. That is how I will know.”

^15-16 As he was still speaking to the Lord about this, a beautiful young girl^[a] named Rebekah arrived with a water jug on her shoulder and filled it at the spring. (Her father was Bethuel the son of Nahor and his wife Milcah.) ¹⁷ Running over to her, the servant asked her for a drink.

¹⁸ “Certainly, sir,” she said, and quickly lowered the jug for him to drink. ¹⁹ Then she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels, too, until they have enough!”

²⁰ So she emptied the jug into the watering trough and ran down to the spring again and kept carrying water to the camels until they had enough. ²¹ The servant said no more, but watched her carefully to see if she would finish the job,^[b] so that he would know whether she was the one. ²² Then at last, when the camels had finished drinking, he produced a quarter-ounce gold earring^[c] and two five-ounce gold bracelets for her wrists.

²³ “Whose daughter are you, miss?” he asked. “Would your father have any room to put us up for the night?”

²⁴ “My father is Bethuel,” she replied. “My grandparents are Milcah and Nahor. ²⁵ Yes, we have plenty of straw and food for the camels, and a guest room.”

²⁶ The man stood there a moment with head bowed, worshiping Jehovah. ²⁷ “Thank you, Lord God of my master Abraham,” he prayed; “thank you for being so kind and true to him, and for leading me straight to the family of my master’s relatives.”

⁹ A widow who wants to become one of the special church workers^[a] should be at least sixty years old and have been married only once. ¹⁰ She must be well thought of by everyone because of the good she has done. Has she brought up her children well? Has she been kind to strangers as well as to other Christians? Has she helped those who are sick and hurt? Is she always ready to show kindness?

¹¹ The younger widows should not become members of this special group because after a while they are likely to disregard their vow to Christ and marry again. ¹² And so they will stand condemned because they broke their first promise. ¹³ Besides, they are likely to be lazy and spend their time gossiping around from house to house, getting into other people’s business. ¹⁴ So I think it is better for these younger widows to marry again and have children and take care of their own homes; then no one will be able to say anything against them. ¹⁵ For I am afraid that some of them have already turned away from the church and been led astray by Satan.

¹⁶ Let me remind you again that a widow’s relatives must take care of her and not leave this to the church to do. Then the church can spend its money for the care of widows who are all alone and have nowhere else to turn.