Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Chapter 2

^1 [a]Then Hannah prayed and said,

Chapter 3

Samuel’s Call.^{[a] 1} Young Samuel ministered to the Lord under Eli. Now the word of the Lord was rare in those days, there were not many visions. ² At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow so weak so that he could not see well anymore, was lying down in his place. ³ The lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord where the Ark of God was kept.^{[b] 4} The Lord called out, “Samuel.” He answered, “Here I am.” ⁵ He ran to Eli and said, “Here I am, you called me.” He said, “I did not call you, go back and lie down.” He went and lay down.

⁶ The Lord called again, “Samuel.” Samuel got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am, you called me.” He said, “I did not call you, my son, lie down again.” ⁷ Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.

⁸ The Lord called Samuel a third time. He got up and went to Samuel and said, “Here I am, you called me.” Then Eli realized that the Lord had called him. ⁹ So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down. If he calls you, say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’ ” So he went and lay down in his place.

¹⁰ Then the Lord came and stood and called out as he had the other times, “Samuel, Samuel.” Samuel said, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” ¹¹ The Lord said to Samuel, “Behold, I am going to do something in Israel that will cause the ears of everyone who hears it to ring. ¹² On that day I will bring against Eli all of the things that I have proclaimed against his house, from beginning to end. ¹³ I have told him that I would judge his household forever because of the sin about which he knew, because his sons brought a curse upon themselves and he did not restrain them. ¹⁴ Therefore, I have sworn to the house of Eli that the guilt will never be atoned from Eli’s house by either sacrifice or offering.”

¹⁵ Samuel lay down until the morning, and then he opened the doors to the house of the Lord. However, he was afraid to reveal the vision to Eli, ¹⁶ but Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son,” and he answered, “Here I am.” ¹⁷ He said, “What is it that the Lord said to you? Please, do not hide it from me. May the Lord do it to you^[c] and even more if you hide anything from me of all those things that he said to you.” ¹⁸ So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from him. He then said, “He is the Lord, let him do what seems best to him.”

Chapter 12

The Parable of the Tenants.^{[a] 1} Then Jesus began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went off on a journey.

² “When the time arrived, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. ³ But they seized the servant, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴ Again, he sent them another servant, but they beat him over the head and treated him shamefully. ⁵ Then he sent another, and that one they killed. He also sent many others, some of whom they beat, and others of whom they killed.

⁶ “Finally, he had only one other to send—his beloved son. And so he sent him to them, thinking: ‘They will respect my son.’ ⁷ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ ⁸ And so they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

⁹ “What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and put those tenants to death and give the vineyard to others. ¹⁰ Have you not read this Scripture:

¹² They wanted to arrest him because they realized that this parable was directed at them, but they were afraid of the crowd. Therefore, they left him and went away.