Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 146

Praise Him for Protection

Praise for Protection

A Lifetime of Praise

No Help in Humans

Help in the Lord

An Eternity for Praise

¹⁷ The Lord told Moses ¹⁸ to speak to the Israelites and tell them this:

When you come to the land to which I am bringing you ¹⁹ and when you eat from the food of the land, you are to present an elevated offering to the Lord. ²⁰ From the first of your dough you are to present a round^[a] loaf as an elevated offering. You are to lift it up just like an elevated offering from the threshing floor. ²¹ For your generations to come, you will give to the Lord an elevated offering from the first of your dough.

Offerings for Unintentional Sins

²² When you err unintentionally and do not carry out all these commands, which the Lord has spoken to Moses— ²³ everything that the Lord has commanded you through Moses, from the day that the Lord first gave these commands and onward, for your generations to come— ²⁴ if it was done unintentionally, and the community was not aware of it, the entire community shall offer one young bull as a whole burnt offering, as a pleasing aroma to the Lord, with its grain offering and its drink offering, according to the ordinance, and one male goat as a sin offering. ²⁵ The priest will make atonement for the entire Israelite community, and they will be forgiven, because it was an unintentional error. They are to bring their offering, a gift made by fire to the Lord, and their sin offering before the Lord for their unintentional error. ²⁶ The entire Israelite community and the aliens who reside among them will be forgiven, for all the people were involved in this error unintentionally.

26 Then Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.”

Then Paul stretched out his hand and began his defense. ² “King Agrippa, I consider myself fortunate that I am going to make my defense before you today concerning all the things about which I am being accused by the Jews, ³ especially because you are an expert in all the Jewish customs and controversies. Therefore, I beg you to listen to me patiently.

⁴ “All the Jews know the way I have lived from the earliest days of my youth, among my own people and in Jerusalem. ⁵ They have known about me for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that I lived as a Pharisee according to the strictest party of our religion.

⁶ “And now I stand on trial because of my hope in the promise made by God to our fathers, ⁷ the promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain as they earnestly serve God night and day. I am being accused by the Jews concerning this hope, O King. ⁸ Why does it seem unbelievable to any of you that God raises the dead?

⁹ “I too was convinced that it was necessary to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus the Nazarene. ¹⁰ And that is what I did in Jerusalem. After receiving authority from the chief priests, I put many of the saints in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. ¹¹ I often tried to make them blaspheme by punishing them throughout all the synagogues. Because I was so insanely angry with them, I even pursued them to foreign cities.