Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
28 To You, O LORD, do I cry. O my strength, do not be deaf toward me; lest if You do not answer me, I be like those who go down into the pit.
2 Hear the voice of my petitions when I cry to You, when I hold up my hands toward Your Holy Oracle.
3 Do not draw me away with the wicked and with the workers of iniquity, who speak friendly to their neighbors when malice is in their hearts.
4 Reward them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their inventions. Recompense them for the work of their hands. Render them their reward.
5 For they do not reward the works of the LORD, nor the operation of His hands. Break them down and do not build them up.
6 Praised be the LORD, for He has heard the voice of my petitions.
7 The LORD is my strength and my shield. My heart trusted in Him, and I was helped. Therefore, my heart shall rejoice; and with my song I will praise Him.
8 The LORD is their strength; and He is the strength of the deliverances of His anointed.
9 Save Your people and bless Your inheritance. Feed them, also, and exalt them forever. A Psalm of David.
39 Now Joseph was brought down into Egypt. And Potiphar, a eunuch of Pharaoh’s (chief steward, an Egyptian), bought him from the hand of the Ishmaelites who had brought him there.
2 And the LORD was with Joseph; and he was a man who prospered and was in the house of his master, the Egyptian.
3 And his master saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did prosper in his hand.
4 So Joseph found favor in his sight and served him. And he made him ruler of his house and put all that he had in his hand.
5 And from the time that he had made him ruler over his house and over all that he had, the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house, for Joseph’s sake. And the blessing of the LORD was upon all that he had in the house, and in the field.
6 Therefore, he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand, and took account of nothing with him, except the bread which he ate. And Joseph was a fair person, and well-favored.
7 Now therefore, after these things, his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph, and said, “Lie with me!”
8 But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Behold, my master does not know what is in the house with me; but has committed all that he has to my hand.
9 “There is no man greater in this house than me. Nor has he kept anything from me, except you, because you are his wife. How, then, can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”
10 And she still spoke to Joseph every day; but he did not listen to her (to lie with her or to be in her company).
11 Then, on a certain day, Joseph entered into the house to do his business. And there was no man of the household in the house.
12 Therefore, she caught him by his garment, saying, “Sleep with me!” But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out.
13 Now, when she saw that he had left his garment in her hand, and had fled,
14 she called to the men of her house, and told them, saying, “Behold, he has brought in a Hebrew to us, to mock us; who came in to me, to sleep with me! But I cried with a loud voice.
15 “And when he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garments with me, and fled away, and got out!”
16 So she laid his garment next to her until her lord came home.
17 Then she told him these words, saying, “The Hebrew servant, which you have brought to us, came in to me, to mock me!
18 “But as soon as I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment with me, and fled!”
19 Then, when his master heard the words of his wife which she told him, saying, “Your servant did this to me,” his anger was kindled.
20 And Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, in the place where the king’s prisoners lay bound. And there he was in prison.
21 But the LORD was with Joseph, and showed him mercy, and got him favor in the sight of the master of the prison.
22 And the keeper of the prison committed all the prisoners that were in the prison to Joseph’s hand. And whatever they did there, that he did.
23 And the keeper of the prison inspected nothing that was under his hand, seeing that the LORD was with him. For whatever he did, the LORD made it prosper.
14 What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Absolutely not!
15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy and will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”
16 So then it is not in him who wills, nor in him who runs, but in God, Who shows mercy.
17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: “For this same purpose I have raised you up, so that I might show My power in you; and that My Name might be declared throughout all the Earth.”
18 Therefore, He has mercy on whom He will. And whom He will, He hardens.
19 You will then say to me: “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?”
20 But who are you, O man, to contradict God? Shall the thing formed say to Him Who formed it, “Why have you made me this way”?
21 Does not indeed the potter have authority over the clay to make, from the same lump, one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor?
22 What if God – though willing to show His wrath, and to make His power known - endured with much patience the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
23 That in so doing, He might declare the riches of His Glory upon the vessels of mercy, which He has prepared unto Glory -
24 even we whom He has called - not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles.
25 As He also says in Hosea: “I will call them ‘My people’ who were not my people; and her ‘Beloved’ who was not beloved.
26 “And it shall be in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people’. There they shall be called ‘The sons of the living God’.”
27 Also, Isaiah cries concerning Israel: “Though the number of the sons of Israel were as the sand of the sea, the remnant shall be saved.
28 “For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work upon the Earth.”
29 And as Isaiah said before: “Except that the Lord of hosts had left us a seed, we had been made as Sodom, and had been like Gomorrah.”
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