Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Prayer for Help—Praise for the Answer

28 O Lord, to You I call. O my Rock, listen to me. If You will not hear me, I will be like those who have gone down to the grave. ² Hear my cry for loving-kindness as I call to You for help, and when I lift up my hands to Your holy place. ³ Do not drag me away with the sinful and with those who do bad things. They speak peace with their neighbors, while sin is in their hearts. ⁴ Pay them for their work and for the sins they do. Pay them for the works of their hands. Give them what they have earned. ⁵ They do not think about the works of the Lord and what His hands have done. So He will pull them down and not build them up again.

⁶ May honor and thanks be given to the Lord, because He has heard my prayer. ⁷ The Lord is my strength and my safe cover. My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped. So my heart is full of joy. I will thank Him with my song. ⁸ The Lord is the strength of His people. He is a safe place for His chosen one. ⁹ Save Your people and bring good to what is Yours. Be their shepherd and carry them forever.

²⁹ Then Reuben returned to the hole. When he saw that Joseph was not in the hole, he tore his clothes. ³⁰ He returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is not there! What can I do?” ³¹ So they took Joseph’s coat, killed a male goat, and put the blood on the coat. ³² They sent the coat of many colors to their father. And they said, “We found this. Is it your son’s coat or not?”

³³ Jacob looked at it and said, “It is my son’s coat! A wild animal has eaten him! For sure Joseph has been torn to pieces!” ³⁴ So Jacob tore his clothes and dressed in clothes made from hair. He had sorrow for his son many days. ³⁵ All his sons and daughters tried to comfort him. But he would not be comforted. He said, “I will go down to the grave in sorrow for my son.” And his father cried for him.

³⁶ The Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, the head of the soldiers of Pharaoh’s house.

⁴ God did not hold back from punishing the angels who sinned, but sent them down to hell. They are to be kept there in the deep hole of darkness until they stand before Him Who judges them. ⁵ God did not hold back from punishing the people of the world who sinned long ago. He brought the flood on the world of sinners. But Noah was a preacher of right living. He and his family of seven were the only ones God saved. ⁶ God said that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were guilty, and He destroyed them with fire. This was to show people who did not worship God what would happen to them. ⁷ Lot was taken away from Sodom because he was right with God. He had been troubled by the sins that bad men did in wild living. ⁸ He saw and heard how the people around him broke the Law. Everyday his own soul which was right with God was troubled because of their sinful ways. ⁹ But the Lord knows how to help men who are right with God when they are tempted. He also knows how to keep the sinners suffering for their wrong-doing until the day they stand before God Who will judge them. ¹⁰ This is true about those who keep on wanting to please their own bodies in sinful desires and those who will not obey laws. They want to please themselves and are not afraid when they laugh and say bad things about the powers in heaven.