Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

50 The mighty God, the Lord, has summoned all mankind from east to west!

² God’s glory-light shines from the beautiful Temple^[a] on Mount Zion. ³ He comes with the noise of thunder,^[b] surrounded by devastating fire; a great storm rages round about him. ⁴ He has come to judge his people. To heaven and earth he shouts, ⁵ “Gather together my own people who by their sacrifice upon my altar have promised to obey me.”^{[c] 6} God will judge them with complete fairness, for all heaven declares that he is just.

²⁶ Another rebel leader was Jeroboam (the son of Nebat), who came from the city of Zeredah in Ephraim; his mother was Zeruah, a widow. ^27-28 Here is the story of his rebellion: Solomon was rebuilding Fort Millo, repairing the walls of this city his father had built. Jeroboam was very able, and when Solomon saw how industrious he was, he put him in charge of his labor battalions from the tribe of Joseph.

²⁹ One day as Jeroboam was leaving Jerusalem, the prophet Ahijah from Shiloh (who had put on a new robe for the occasion) met him and called him aside to talk to him. And as the two of them were alone in the field, ³⁰ Ahijah tore his new robe into twelve parts ³¹ and said to Jeroboam, “Take ten of these pieces, for the Lord God of Israel says, ‘I will tear the kingdom from the hand of Solomon and give ten of the tribes to you! ³² But I will leave him one tribe^[a] for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen above all the other cities of Israel. ³³ For Solomon has forsaken me and worships Ashtoreth, the goddess of the Sidonians; and Chemosh, the god of Moab; and Milcom, the god of the Ammonites. He has not followed my paths and has not done what I consider right; he has not kept my laws and instructions as his father David did. ³⁴ I will not take the kingdom from him now, however; for the sake of my servant David, my chosen one who obeyed my commandments, I will let Solomon reign for the rest of his life.

³⁵ “‘But I will take away the kingdom from his son and give ten of the tribes to you. ³⁶ His son shall have the other one so that the descendants of David will continue to reign in Jerusalem, the city I have chosen to be the place for my name to be enshrined. ³⁷ And I will place you on the throne of Israel and give you absolute power. ³⁸ If you listen to what I tell you and walk in my path and do whatever I consider right, obeying my commandments as my servant David did, then I will bless you; and your descendants shall rule Israel forever. (I once made this same promise to David. ³⁹ But because of Solomon’s sin, I will punish the descendants of David—though not forever.)’”

⁴⁰ Solomon tried to kill Jeroboam, but he fled to King Shishak of Egypt and stayed there until the death of Solomon.

¹² Well, when I got as far as the city of Troas, the Lord gave me tremendous opportunities to preach the Gospel. ¹³ But Titus, my dear brother, wasn’t there to meet me and I couldn’t rest, wondering where he was and what had happened to him. So I said good-bye and went right on to Macedonia to try to find him.

¹⁴ But thanks be to God! For through what Christ has done, he has triumphed over us so that now wherever we go he uses us to tell others about the Lord and to spread the Gospel like a sweet perfume. ¹⁵ As far as God is concerned there is a sweet, wholesome fragrance in our lives. It is the fragrance of Christ within us, an aroma to both the saved and the unsaved all around us. ¹⁶ To those who are not being saved, we seem a fearful smell of death and doom, while to those who know Christ we are a life-giving perfume. But who is adequate for such a task as this? ¹⁷ Only those who, like ourselves, are men of integrity, sent by God, speaking with Christ’s power, with God’s eye upon us. We are not like those hucksters—and there are many of them—whose idea in getting out the Gospel is to make a good living out of it.