Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁸ [Vividly she pictured it] The voice of my beloved [shepherd]! Behold, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills.^(A)

⁹ My beloved is like a gazelle or a young hart. Behold, he stands behind the wall of our house, he looks in through the windows, he glances through the lattice.

¹⁰ My beloved speaks and says to me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.

¹¹ For, behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone.

¹² The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing [of birds] has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

¹³ The fig tree puts forth and ripens her green figs, and the vines are in blossom and give forth their fragrance. ^[a]Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

29 Then Jacob went [briskly and cheerfully] on his way [400 miles] and came to the land of the people of the East.

² As he looked, he saw a well in the field; and behold, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it, for out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone on the well’s mouth was a big one,

³ And when all the flocks were gathered there, [the shepherds] would roll the stone from the well’s mouth, water the sheep, and replace the stone on the well’s mouth.

⁴ And Jacob said to them, My brothers, where are you from? And they said, We are from Haran.

⁵ [Jacob] said to them, Do you know Laban the grandson of Nahor? And they said, We know him.

⁶ He said to them, Is it well with him? And they said, He is doing well; and behold, here comes his daughter Rachel with [his] sheep!

⁷ He said, The sun is still high; it is a long time yet before the flocks need be gathered [in their folds]. [Why not] water the sheep and return them to their pasture?

⁸ But they said, We cannot until all the flocks are gathered together; then [the shepherds] roll the stone from the well’s mouth and we water the sheep.

⁹ While he was still talking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she shepherded them.

¹⁰ When Jacob saw Rachel daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his uncle, Jacob went near and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth and watered the flock of his uncle Laban.

¹¹ Then Jacob kissed Rachel and he wept aloud.

¹² Jacob told Rachel he was her father’s relative, Rebekah’s son; and she ran and told her father.

¹³ When Laban heard of the arrival of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced and kissed him and brought him to his house. And [Jacob] told Laban all these things.

¹⁴ Then Laban said to him, Surely you are my bone and my flesh. And [Jacob] stayed with him a month.

3 Then what advantage remains to the Jew? [How is he favored?] Or what is the value or benefit of circumcision?

² Much in every way. To begin with, to the Jews were entrusted the oracles (the brief communications, the intentions, the utterances) of God.^(A)

³ What if some did not believe and were without faith? Does their lack of faith and their faithlessness nullify and make ineffective and void the faithfulness of God and His fidelity [to His Word]?

⁴ By no means! Let God be found true though every human being is false and a liar, as it is written, That You may be justified and shown to be upright in what You say, and prevail when You are judged [by sinful men].^(B)

⁵ But if our unrighteousness thus establishes and exhibits the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unjust and wrong to inflict His wrath upon us [Jews]? I speak in a [purely] human way.

⁶ By no means! Otherwise, how could God judge the world?

⁷ But [you say] if through my falsehood God’s integrity is magnified and advertised and abounds to His glory, why am I still being judged as a sinner?

⁸ And why should we not do evil that good may come?—as some slanderously charge us with teaching. Such [false teaching] is justly condemned by them.