Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 6

To the Chief Musician; on stringed instruments, set [possibly] an octave below. A Psalm of David.

¹ O Lord, rebuke me not in Your anger nor discipline and chasten me in Your hot displeasure.

² Have mercy on me and be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am weak (faint and withered away); O Lord, heal me, for my bones are troubled.

³ My [inner] self [as well as my body] is also exceedingly disturbed and troubled. But You, O Lord, how long [until You return and speak peace to me]?

⁴ Return [to my relief], O Lord, deliver my life; save me for the sake of Your steadfast love and mercy.

⁵ For in death there is no remembrance of You; in Sheol (the place of the dead) who will give You thanks?

⁶ I am weary with my groaning; all night I soak my pillow with tears, I drench my couch with my weeping.

⁷ My eye grows dim because of grief; it grows old because of all my enemies.

⁸ Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity, for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping.^(A)

⁹ The Lord has heard my supplication; the Lord receives my prayer.

¹⁰ Let all my enemies be ashamed and sorely troubled; let them turn back and be put to shame suddenly.

¹⁵ Then Naaman returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and stood before him. He said, Behold, now I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel. So now accept a gift from your servant.

¹⁶ Elisha said, As the Lord lives, before Whom I stand, I will accept none. He urged him to take it, but Elisha refused.

¹⁷ Naaman said, Then, I pray you, let there be given to me, your servant, two mules’ burden of earth. For your servant will henceforth offer neither burnt offering nor sacrifice to other gods, but only to the Lord.

¹⁸ In this thing may the Lord pardon your servant: when my master [the king] goes into the house of [his god] Rimmon to worship there, and he leans on my hand and I bow myself in the house of Rimmon, when I bow down myself in the house of Rimmon, may the Lord pardon your servant in this thing.

¹⁹ Elisha said to him, Go in peace. So Naaman departed from him a little way.

²¹ Now after these events Paul determined in the [Holy] Spirit that he would travel through Macedonia and Achaia (most of Greece) and go to Jerusalem, saying, After I have been there, I must visit Rome also.

²² And having sent two of his assistants, Timothy and Erastus, into Macedonia, he himself stayed on in [the province of] Asia for a while.

²³ But as time went on, there arose no little disturbance concerning the Way [of the Lord].

²⁴ For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of [the goddess] Artemis ^[a][Diana], brought no small income to his craftsmen.

²⁵ These he called together, along with the workmen of similar trades, and said, Men, you are acquainted with the facts and understand that from this business we derive our wealth and livelihood.

²⁶ Now you notice and hear that not only at Ephesus but almost all over [the province of] Asia this Paul has persuaded and induced people to believe his teaching and has alienated a considerable company of them, saying that gods that are made with human hands are not really gods at all.

²⁷ Now there is danger not merely that this trade of ours may be discredited, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis may come into disrepute and count for nothing, and that her glorious magnificence may be degraded and fall into contempt—she whom all [the province of] Asia and the wide world worship.