Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
8 You people, praise our God;
loudly sing his praise.
9 He protects our lives
and does not let us be defeated.
10 God, you have tested us;
you have purified us like silver.
11 You let us be trapped
and put a heavy load on us.
12 You let our enemies walk on our heads.
We went through fire and flood,
but you brought us to a place with good things.
13 I will come to your Temple with burnt offerings.
I will give you what I promised,
14 things I promised when I was in trouble.
15 I will bring you offerings of fat animals,
and I will offer sheep, bulls, and goats. Selah
16 All of you who fear God, come and listen,
and I will tell you what he has done for me.
17 I cried out to him with my mouth
and praised him with my tongue.
18 If I had known of any sin in my heart,
the Lord would not have listened to me.
19 But God has listened;
he has heard my prayer.
20 Praise God,
who did not ignore my prayer
or hold back his love from me.
5 The Lord saw that the human beings on the earth were very wicked and that everything they thought about was evil. 6 He was sorry he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the Lord said, “I will destroy all human beings that I made on the earth. And I will destroy every animal and everything that crawls on the earth and the birds of the air, because I am sorry I have made them.” 8 But Noah pleased the Lord.
Noah and the Great Flood
9 This is the family history of Noah. Noah was a good man, the most innocent man of his time, and he walked with God. 10 He had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11 People on earth did what God said was evil, and violence was everywhere. 12 When God saw that everyone on the earth did only evil, 13 he said to Noah, “Because people have made the earth full of violence, I will destroy all of them from the earth. 14 Build a boat of cypress wood for yourself. Make rooms in it and cover it inside and outside with tar. 15 This is how big I want you to build the boat: four hundred fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high. 16 Make an opening around the top of the boat that is eighteen inches high from the edge of the roof down. Put a door in the side of the boat. Make an upper, middle, and lower deck in it. 17 I will bring a flood of water on the earth to destroy all living things that live under the sky, including everything that has the breath of life. Everything on the earth will die. 18 But I will make an agreement with you—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives will all go into the boat. 19 Also, you must bring into the boat two of every living thing, male and female. Keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, animal, and crawling thing will come to you to be kept alive. 21 Also gather some of every kind of food and store it on the boat as food for you and the animals.”
22 Noah did everything that God commanded him.
Paul Sails for Rome
27 It was decided that we would sail for Italy. An officer named Julius, who served in the emperor’s[a] army, guarded Paul and some other prisoners. 2 We got on a ship that was from the city of Adramyttium and was about to sail to different ports in Asia. Aristarchus, a man from the city of Thessalonica in Macedonia, went with us. 3 The next day we came to Sidon. Julius was very good to Paul and gave him freedom to go visit his friends, who took care of his needs. 4 We left Sidon and sailed close to the island of Cyprus, because the wind was blowing against us. 5 We went across the sea by Cilicia and Pamphylia and landed at the city of Myra, in Lycia. 6 There the officer found a ship from Alexandria that was going to Italy, so he put us on it.
7 We sailed slowly for many days. We had a hard time reaching Cnidus because the wind was blowing against us, and we could not go any farther. So we sailed by the south side of the island of Crete near Salmone. 8 Sailing past it was hard. Then we came to a place called Fair Havens, near the city of Lasea.
9 We had lost much time, and it was now dangerous to sail, because it was already after the Day of Cleansing.[b] So Paul warned them, 10 “Men, I can see there will be a lot of trouble on this trip. The ship, the cargo, and even our lives may be lost.” 11 But the captain and the owner of the ship did not agree with Paul, and the officer believed what the captain and owner of the ship said. 12 Since that harbor was not a good place for the ship to stay for the winter, most of the men decided that the ship should leave. They hoped we could go to Phoenix and stay there for the winter. Phoenix, a city on the island of Crete, had a harbor which faced southwest and northwest.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.