Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

²⁰ “I have found David, My servant. With My holy oil have I anointed him.

²¹ “Therefore, My hand shall be established with him and My arm shall strengthen him.

²² “The enemy shall not oppress him, nor shall the wicked hurt him.

²³ “But I will destroy his foes before his face and plague those who hate him.

²⁴ “My truth also, and My mercy, shall be with him; and in My Name shall his horn be exalted.

²⁵ “I will also set his hand in the sea, and his right hand in the floods.

²⁶ “He shall cry to me, ‘You are my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation.’

²⁷ “Also, I will make him My firstborn, higher than the kings of the Earth.

²⁸ “I will keep My mercy for him for evermore; and My Covenant shall stand fast with him.

²⁹ “I will also make his Seed endure forever, and his Throne as the days of Heaven.

³⁰ “If his children forsake My Law and do not walk in My Judgments,

³¹ “if they break my statutes and do not keep My Commandments,

³² “then I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with strokes.

³³ “Yet, I will not take My lovingkindness from him, nor will I falsify My truth.

³⁴ “Nor will I break My Covenant, nor alter the thing that has gone out of My lips.

³⁵ “I have sworn once, by My holiness, that I will not fail David.

³⁶ “His Seed shall endure forever; and his Throne shall be as the Sun before Me.

³⁷ “He shall be established forevermore as the Moon, and as a faithful witness in the heaven.” Selah.

14 Then Hiram, the king of Tyre, sent messengers to David, and cedar trees, with masons and carpenters to build himself a house.

² Therefore, David knew that the LORD had confirmed him king over Israel, and that his kingdom was lifted up on high, because of His people Israel.

¹⁶ Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, when he saw the idolatry in the city, his spirit was pricked within him.

¹⁷ Therefore he disputed daily - with the Jews in the synagogue, with the religious, and in the marketplace - with whomever he met.

¹⁸ Then some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers disputed with him. And some said, “What will this babbler say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange gods.” (because he preached Jesus to them, and the resurrection.)

¹⁹ And they took him, and brought him to Mars’ Hill, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak?

²⁰ “For you bring some strange things to our ears. Therefore, we want to know what these things mean.”

²¹ For all the Athenians (and strangers who dwelt there) gave themselves to nothing else but either telling or hearing something new.

²² Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ Hill, and said, “Men of Athens! I perceive that in all things you are very fearful of gods.

²³ “For as I passed by and observed your objects of worship, I found an altar whereupon was written, ‘TO THE UNKNOWN GOD’. Him then, Whom you ignorantly worship, I proclaim to you.

²⁴ “God - Who made the world and all things that therein are - seeing that He is Lord of Heaven and Earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.

²⁵ “Nor is He worshipped with man’s hands as though He needed anything (seeing He gives life to all, and breath, and all things).

²⁶ “And He has made, from one blood, all nations of mankind to dwell on all the face of the Earth; and has assigned the seasons (which were pre-ordained) and the boundaries of their dwellings,

²⁷ “so that they should seek the Lord; that perhaps they might have groped after Him and found Him. Though doubtless He is not far from each one of us.

²⁸ “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being, as some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His family’.

²⁹ “Therefore, since we are the family of God, we ought not to think that the Divine is like gold, or silver, or stone, sculpted by art and the invention of man.

³⁰ “God, having overlooked these times of ignorance, now admonishes all mankind, everywhere, to repent.

³¹ “Because He has appointed a Day on the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man Whom He has appointed. He has given us all this assurance by raising Him from the dead.”