Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

(A prayer by David.)

A Prayer for Help

Jacob Returns to Bethel

35 ^(A) God told Jacob, “Return to Bethel, where I appeared to you when you were running from your brother Esau. Make your home there and build an altar for me.”

² Jacob said to his family and to everyone else who was traveling with him:

Get rid of your foreign gods! Then make yourselves acceptable to worship God and put on clean clothes. ³ Afterwards, we'll go to Bethel. I will build an altar there for God, who answered my prayers when I was in trouble and who has always been at my side.

⁴ So everyone gave Jacob their idols and their earrings,^[a] and he buried them under the oak tree near Shechem.

Trouble for the Apostles

¹⁷ The high priest and all the other Sadducees who were with him became jealous. ¹⁸ They arrested the apostles and put them in the city jail. ¹⁹ But that night an angel from the Lord opened the doors of the jail and led the apostles out. The angel said, ²⁰ “Go to the temple and tell the people everything about this new life.” ²¹ So they went into the temple before sunrise and started teaching.

The high priest and his men called together their council, which included all of Israel's leaders. Then they ordered the apostles to be brought to them from the jail. ²² The temple police who were sent to the jail did not find the apostles. They returned and said, ²³ “We found the jail locked tight and the guards standing at the doors. But when we opened the doors and went in, we didn't find anyone there.” ²⁴ The captain of the temple police and the chief priests listened to their report, but they did not know what to think about it.

²⁵ Just then someone came in and said, “Now those men you put in jail are in the temple, teaching the people!” ²⁶ The captain went with some of the temple police and brought the apostles back. But they did not use force. They were afraid that the people might start throwing stones at them.