Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A Davidic Psalm

Remembering God’s Love

Solomon’s Wisdom is Tested

¹⁶ Right about then, two prostitutes approached the king and requested an audience with him. ¹⁷ One woman said, “Your majesty, this woman and I live in the same house. I gave birth to a child while she was in the house. ¹⁸ Three days later, this woman also gave birth. We lived alone there. There was nobody else with us in the house. It was just the two of us. ¹⁹ This woman’s son died overnight because she laid on top of him. ²⁰ She got up in the middle of the night, took my son from me while your servant was asleep, and laid him to her breast after laying her dead son next to me. ²¹ The next morning, I got up to nurse my son, and he was dead. But when I examined him carefully in the light of day, he turned out not to be my son whom I had borne!”

²² “Not so,” claimed the other woman. “The living child is my son, and the dead one is yours.”

But the first woman said, “Not so! The dead child is your son and the living one is my son.” This is what they testified before the king.

²³ The king said, “One of them claims, ‘This living son is mine, and your son is the dead one’ and the other claims ‘No. Your son is the dead one and my son is the living one.’ ²⁴ “Somebody get me a sword.” So they brought a sword to the king. ²⁵ “Divide the living child in two!” he ordered. “Give half to the one and half to the other.”

²⁶ The woman whose child was still alive cried out to the king, because her heart yearned for her son. “Oh no, your majesty!” she said. “Give her the living child. Please don’t kill him.”

But the other woman said, “Cut him in half! That way, he’ll belong to neither one of us.”

²⁷ The king announced his decision: “Give the living child to the first woman. Don’t kill him. She is his mother.” ²⁸ When this decision that the king had handed down was announced, everybody in Israel was amazed at^[a] the king, because they all saw that God’s wisdom was in him, enabling him to administer justice.

Seven Men are Chosen to Help the Apostles

6 In those days, as the number of the disciples was growing larger and larger, a complaint was made by the Hellenistic Jews against the Hebraic Jews that their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food. ² So the Twelve called the whole group of disciples together and said, “It is not desirable for us to neglect messages from^[a] God in order to wait on tables. ³ Therefore, brothers, appoint seven men among you who have a good reputation, who are full of the Spirit and wisdom, and we’ll put them in charge of this work. ⁴ Then we’ll devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

⁵ This suggestion pleased the whole group. So they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a gentile convert to Judaism from Antioch. ⁶ They had these men stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.

⁷ So the word of God^[b] continued to spread, and the number of disciples in Jerusalem continued to grow rapidly. Even a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.