Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

146 Praise the Lord! Yes, really praise him! ² I will praise him as long as I live, yes, even with my dying breath.

³ Don’t look to men for help; their greatest leaders fail; ⁴ for every man must die. His breathing stops, life ends, and in a moment all he planned for himself is ended. ⁵ But happy is the man who has the God of Jacob as his helper, whose hope is in the Lord his God— ⁶ the God who made both earth and heaven, the seas and everything in them. He is the God who keeps every promise, ⁷ who gives justice to the poor and oppressed and food to the hungry. He frees the prisoners ⁸ and opens the eyes of the blind; he lifts the burdens from those bent down beneath their loads. For the Lord loves good men. ⁹ He protects the immigrants and cares for the orphans and widows. But he turns topsy-turvy the plans of the wicked.

¹⁰ The Lord will reign forever. O Jerusalem,^[a] your God is King in every generation! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

^17-18 The Lord also said to Moses at this time, “Instruct the people of Israel that when they arrive in the land that I am going to give them, ^19-21 they must present to the Lord a sample of each year’s new crops by making a loaf, using coarse flour from the first grain that is cut each year. This loaf must be waved back and forth before the altar in a gesture of offering to the Lord. It is an annual offering from your threshing floor and must be observed from generation to generation.

²² “If by mistake you or future generations fail to carry out all of these regulations that the Lord has given you over the years through Moses, ^23-24 then when the people realize their error, they must offer one young bull for a burnt offering. It will be a pleasant odor before the Lord, and must be offered along with the usual grain offering and drink offering, and one male goat for a sin offering. ²⁵ And the priest shall make atonement for all of the people of Israel and they shall be forgiven; for it was an error, and they have corrected it with their sacrifice made by fire before the Lord, and by their sin offering. ²⁶ All the people shall be forgiven, including the foreigners living among them, for the entire population is involved in such error and forgiveness.

26 Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Go ahead. Tell us your story.”

So Paul, with many gestures,^[a] presented his defense:

² “I am fortunate, King Agrippa,” he began, “to be able to present my answer before you, ³ for I know you are an expert on Jewish laws and customs. Now please listen patiently!

⁴ “As the Jews are well aware, I was given a thorough Jewish training from my earliest childhood in Tarsus^[b] and later at Jerusalem, and I lived accordingly. ⁵ If they would admit it, they know that I have always been the strictest of Pharisees when it comes to obedience to Jewish laws and customs. ⁶ But the real reason behind their accusations is something else—it is because I am looking forward to the fulfillment of God’s promise made to our ancestors. ⁷ The twelve tribes of Israel strive night and day to attain this same hope I have! Yet, O King, for me it is a crime, they say! ⁸ But is it a crime to believe in the resurrection of the dead? Does it seem incredible to you that God can bring men back to life again?

⁹ “I used to believe that I ought to do many horrible things to the followers of Jesus of Nazareth.^{[c] 10} I imprisoned many of the saints in Jerusalem, as authorized by the High Priests; and when they were condemned to death, I cast my vote against them. ¹¹ I used torture to try to make Christians everywhere curse Christ. I was so violently opposed to them that I even hounded them in distant cities in foreign lands.