Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
God Calls Samuel
3 The boy Samuel was Eli’s helper and served the Lord with him. At that time the Lord did not speak directly to people very often. There were very few visions.
2 Eli’s eyes were getting so weak that he was almost blind. One night he went to his room to go to bed. 3 The special lamp in the Lord’s temple[a] was still burning, so Samuel lay down in the temple near where the Holy Box was. 4 The Lord called Samuel, and Samuel answered, “Here I am.” 5 Samuel thought Eli was calling him, so he ran to Eli and said, “Here I am. You called me.”
But Eli said, “I didn’t call you. Go back to bed.”
So Samuel went back to bed. 6 Again the Lord called, “Samuel!” Again Samuel ran to Eli and said, “Here I am. You called me.”
Eli said, “I didn’t call you. Go back to bed.”
7 Samuel did not yet know the Lord because the Lord had not spoken directly to him before.[b]
8 The Lord called Samuel the third time. Again Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am. You called me.”
Finally, Eli understood that the Lord was calling the boy. 9 Eli told Samuel, “Go to bed. If he calls you again, say, ‘Speak, Lord. I am your servant, and I am listening.’”
So Samuel went back to bed. 10 The Lord came and stood there. He called as he did before, saying, “Samuel, Samuel!”
Samuel said, “Speak. I am your servant, and I am listening.”
11 The Lord said to Samuel, “I will soon do things in Israel that will shock anyone who hears about them. 12 I will do everything I said I would do against Eli and his family, everything from the beginning to the end. 13 I told Eli I would punish his family forever. I will do this because Eli knew his sons were saying and doing bad things against God. But he failed to control them. 14 That is why I swore an oath that sacrifices and offerings will never take away the sins of the people in Eli’s family.[a]”
15 Samuel lay down in bed until the morning came. He got up early and opened the doors of the Lord’s house. Samuel was afraid to tell Eli about the vision.
16 But Eli said to Samuel, “Samuel, my son.”
Samuel answered, “Yes, sir.”
17 Eli asked, “What did God say to you? Don’t hide it from me. God will punish you if you hide anything from the message he spoke to you.”
18 So Samuel told Eli everything. He did not hide anything from him.
Eli said, “He is the Lord. Let him do whatever he thinks is right.”
19 The Lord was with Samuel while he grew up. He did not let any of Samuel’s messages prove false. 20 Then all Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, knew that Samuel was a true prophet of the Lord.
To the director: A praise song of David.
139 Lord, you have tested me,
so you know all about me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I get up.
You know my thoughts from far away.
3 You know where I go and where I lie down.
You know everything I do.
4 Lord, you know what I want to say,
even before the words leave my mouth.
5 You are all around me—in front of me and behind me.
I feel your hand on my shoulder.
6 I am amazed at what you know;
it is too much for me to understand.
13 You formed the way I think and feel.[a]
You put me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because you made me in such a wonderful way.
I know how amazing that was!
15 You could see my bones grow as my body took shape,
hidden in my mother’s womb.[b]
16 You could see my body grow each passing day.[c]
You listed all my parts, and not one of them was missing.
17 Your thoughts are beyond my understanding.[d]
They cannot be measured!
18 If I could count them, they would be more than all the grains of sand.
But when I finished, I would have just begun.[e]
Use Your Bodies for God’s Glory
12 “I am allowed to do anything,” you say. My answer to this is that not all things are good. Even if it is true that “I am allowed to do anything,” I will not let anything control me like a slave. 13 Someone else says, “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach for food.” Yes, and God will destroy them both. But the body is not for sexual sin. The body is for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. 14 And God will raise our bodies from death with the same power he used to raise the Lord Jesus. 15 Surely you know that your bodies are parts of Christ himself. So I must never take what is part of Christ and join it to a prostitute! 16 The Scriptures say, “The two people will become one.”[a] So you should know that anyone who is joined with a prostitute becomes one with her in body. 17 But anyone who is joined with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
18 So run away from sexual sin. It involves the body in a way that no other sin does. So if you commit sexual sin, you are sinning against your own body. 19 You should know that your body is a temple[b] for the Holy Spirit that you received from God and that lives in you. You don’t own yourselves. 20 God paid a very high price to make you his. So honor God with your body.
43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He met Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Philip was from the town of Bethsaida, the same as Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the man that Moses wrote about in the law. The prophets wrote about him too. He is Jesus, the son of Joseph. He is from Nazareth.”
46 But Nathanael said to Philip, “Nazareth! Can anything good come from Nazareth?”
Philip answered, “Come and see.”
47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said, “This man coming is a true Israelite, one you can trust.[a]”
48 Nathanael asked, “How do you know me?”
Jesus answered, “I saw you when you were under the fig tree, before Philip told you about me.”
49 Then Nathanael said, “Teacher, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel.”
50 Jesus said to him, “Do you believe this just because I said I saw you under the fig tree? You will see much greater things than that!” 51 Then he said, “Believe me when I say that you will all see heaven open. You will see ‘angels of God going up and coming down’[b] on the Son of Man.”
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International