Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁸ So that those who dwell in earth’s farthest parts are afraid of [nature’s] signs of Your presence. You make the places where morning and evening have birth to shout for joy.

⁹ You visit the earth and saturate it with water; You greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water; You provide them with grain when You have so prepared the earth.

¹⁰ You water the field’s furrows abundantly, You settle the ridges of it; You make the soil soft with showers, blessing the sprouting of its vegetation.

¹¹ You crown the year with Your bounty and goodness, and the tracks of Your [chariot wheels] drip with fatness.

¹² The [luxuriant] pastures in the uncultivated country drip [with moisture], and the hills gird themselves with joy.

¹³ The meadows are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are covered with grain; they shout for joy and sing together.

²⁵ When Rachel had borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, Send me away, that I may go to my own place and country.

²⁶ Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, and let me go; for you know the work which I have done for you.

²⁷ And Laban said to him, If I have found favor in your sight, I pray you [do not go]; for I have learned by experience and from the omens in divination that the Lord has favored me with blessings on your account.

²⁸ He said, State your salary and I will give it.

²⁹ Jacob answered him, You know how I have served you, and how your possessions, your cattle and sheep and goats, have fared with me.

³⁰ For you had little before I came, and it has increased and multiplied abundantly; and the Lord has favored you with blessings wherever I turned. But now, when shall I provide for my own house also?

³¹ [Laban] said, What shall I give you? And Jacob said, You shall not give me anything, if you will do this one thing for me [of which I am about to tell you], and I will again feed and take care of your flock.

³² Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted animal and every black one among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats; and such shall be my wages.

³³ So later when the matter of my wages is brought before you, my fair dealing will be evident and answer for me. Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the sheep, if found with me, shall be counted as stolen.

³⁴ And Laban said, Good; let it be done as you say.

³⁵ But that same day [Laban] removed the he-goats that were streaked and spotted and all the she-goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every black lamb, and put them in charge of his sons.

³⁶ And he set [a distance of] three days’ journey between himself and Jacob; and Jacob was then left in care of the rest of Laban’s flock.

¹³ Who is there among you who is wise and intelligent? Then let him by his noble living show forth his [good] works with the [unobtrusive] humility [which is the proper attribute] of true wisdom.

¹⁴ But if you have bitter jealousy (envy) and contention (rivalry, selfish ambition) in your hearts, do not pride yourselves on it and thus be in defiance of and false to the Truth.

¹⁵ This [superficial] wisdom is not such as comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual (animal), even devilish (demoniacal).

¹⁶ For wherever there is jealousy (envy) and contention (rivalry and selfish ambition), there will also be confusion (unrest, disharmony, rebellion) and all sorts of evil and vile practices.

¹⁷ But the wisdom from above is first of all pure (undefiled); then it is peace-loving, courteous (considerate, gentle). [It is willing to] yield to reason, full of compassion and good fruits; it is wholehearted and straightforward, impartial and unfeigned (free from doubts, wavering, and insincerity).

¹⁸ And the harvest of righteousness (of conformity to God’s will in thought and deed) is [the fruit of the seed] sown in peace by those who work for and make peace [in themselves and in others, that peace which means concord, agreement, and harmony between individuals, with undisturbedness, in a peaceful mind free from fears and agitating passions and moral conflicts].