Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
The Young Woman Remembers One Spring Day with Her Beloved
[Bride]
8 I hear my beloved’s voice.
Look! Here he comes,
sprinting over the mountains,
racing over the hills.
9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.
Look! There he stands behind our wall,
peeking through the window,
looking through the lattice.
10 My beloved said to me,
“Get up, my true love, my beautiful one, and come with me.
11 Look! The winter is past.
The rain is over and gone.
12 Blossoms appear in the land.
The time of the songbird has arrived.
The cooing of the mourning dove is heard in our land.
13 The green figs ripen.
The grapevines bloom and give off a fragrance.
Get up, my true love, my beautiful one, and come with me.
Jacob’s Arrival in Haran
29 Jacob continued on his trip and came to the land in the east. 2 He looked around, and out in a field he saw a well with a large stone over the opening. Three flocks of sheep were lying down near it, because the flocks were watered from that well. 3 When all the flocks were gathered there, the stone would be rolled off the opening of the well so that the sheep could be watered. Then the stone would be put back in place over the opening of the well.
4 Jacob asked some people, “My friends, where are you from?”
“We’re from Haran,” they replied.
5 He asked them, “Do you know Laban, Nahor’s grandson?”
They answered, “We do.”
6 “How is he doing?” Jacob asked them.
“He’s fine,” they answered. “Here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep.”
7 “It’s still the middle of the day,” he said. “It isn’t time yet to gather the livestock. Water the sheep. Then let them graze.”
8 They replied, “We can’t until all the flocks are gathered. When the stone is rolled off the opening of the well, we can water the sheep.”
9 While he was still talking to them, Rachel arrived with her father’s sheep, because she was a shepherd. 10 Jacob saw Rachel, daughter of his uncle Laban, with his uncle Laban’s sheep. He came forward and rolled the stone off the opening of the well and watered his uncle Laban’s sheep. 11 Then Jacob kissed Rachel and sobbed loudly. 12 When Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s nephew and that he was Rebekah’s son, she ran and told her father.
13 As soon as Laban heard the news about his sister’s son Jacob, he ran to meet him. He hugged and kissed him and brought him into his home. Then Jacob told Laban all that had happened. 14 Laban said to him, “You are my own flesh and blood.”
Jacob Obtains Wives
Jacob stayed with him for a whole month.
Everyone Is a Sinner
3 Is there any advantage, then, in being a Jew? Or is there any value in being circumcised? 2 There are all kinds of advantages. First of all, God entrusted them with his word.
3 What if some of them were unfaithful? Can their unfaithfulness cancel God’s faithfulness? 4 That would be unthinkable! God is honest, and everyone else is a liar, as Scripture says,
“So you hand down justice when you speak,
and you win your case in court.”
5 But if what we do wrong shows that God is fair, what should we say? Is God unfair when he vents his anger on us? (I’m arguing the way humans would.) 6 That’s unthinkable! Otherwise, how would God be able to judge the world? 7 If my lie increases the glory that God receives by showing that God is truthful, why am I still judged as a sinner? 8 Or can we say, “Let’s do evil so that good will come from it”? Some slander us and claim that this is what we say. They are condemned, and that’s what they deserve.
The Names of God Bible (without notes) © 2011 by Baker Publishing Group.