Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Jerusalem Will Be Great
60 “Jerusalem, get up and shine. Your light has come.
The glory of the Lord shines on you.
2 Darkness now covers the earth.
Deep darkness covers her people.
But the Lord shines on you,
and people see his glory around you.
3 Nations will come to your light.
Kings will come to the brightness of your sunrise.
4 “Look around you.
People are gathering and coming to you.
They are your sons coming from far away.
And your daughters are coming with them.
5 When you see them, you will shine with happiness.
You will be excited and full of joy.
The wealth of the nations across the seas will be given to you.
The riches of the nations will come to you.
6 Herds of camels will cover your land.
Young camels will come from Midian and Ephah.
People will come from Sheba
bringing gold and incense.
And they will sing praises to the Lord.
A Prayer for the King
Of Solomon.
72 God, give the king your good judgment
and the king’s son your goodness.
2 Help him judge your people fairly.
Help him decide what is right for the poor.
3 Let there be peace on the mountains
and goodness on the hills.
4 Help him be fair to the poor.
Help him save the needy
and punish those who hurt them.
5 Help him live as long as the sun shines.
Help him rule as long as the moon glows.
Let him be king from now on!
6 Let him be like rain on the grass,
like showers that water the earth.
7 Let goodness be plentiful while he lives.
Let peace continue as long as there is a moon.
10 Let the kings of Tarshish and the faraway lands
bring him gifts.
Let the kings of Sheba and Seba
bring their presents to him.
11 Let all kings bow down to him.
Let all nations serve him.
12 He will help the poor when they cry for help.
He will help the needy when no one else will help them.
13 He will be kind to the weak and poor.
He will save their lives.
14 He will save them from cruel people who try to hurt them.
Their lives are precious to him.
Paul’s Work for the Non-Jews
3 So I, Paul, am a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I am a prisoner for you who are not Jews. 2 Surely you know that God gave me this work to tell you about his grace. 3 God let me know his secret plan. He showed it to me. I have already written a little about this. 4 And if you read what I wrote, then you can see that I truly understand the secret truth about the Christ. 5 People who lived in other times were not told that secret truth. But now, through the Spirit, God has shown that secret truth to his holy apostles and prophets. 6 This is that secret truth: that the non-Jews will receive what God has for his people, just as the Jews will. The non-Jews are together with the Jews as part of the same body. And they share together in the promise that God made in Christ Jesus. The non-Jews have all of this because of the Good News.
7 By God’s special gift of grace, I became a servant to tell that Good News. God gave me that grace through his power. 8 I am the least important of all God’s people. But God gave me this gift—to tell the non-Jewish people the Good News about the riches of Christ. Those riches are too great to understand fully. 9 And God gave me the work of telling all people about the plan for God’s secret truth. That secret truth has been hidden in God since the beginning of time. God is the One who created everything. 10 His purpose was that through the church all the rulers and powers in the heavenly world will now know God’s wisdom, which has so many forms. 11 This agrees with the purpose God had since the beginning of time. And God carried out his plan through Christ Jesus our Lord. 12 In Christ we can come before God with freedom and without fear. We can do this through faith in Christ.
Wise Men Come to Visit Jesus
2 Jesus was born in the town of Bethlehem in Judea during the time when Herod was king. After Jesus was born, some wise men from the east came to Jerusalem. 2 They asked, “Where is the baby who was born to be the king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east. We came to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard about this new king of the Jews, he was troubled. And all the people in Jerusalem were worried too. 4 Herod called a meeting of all the leading priests and teachers of the law. He asked them where the Christ would be born. 5 They answered, “In the town of Bethlehem in Judea. The prophet wrote about this in the Scriptures:
6 ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
you are important among the rulers of Judah.
A ruler will come from you.
He will be like a shepherd for my people, the Israelites.’” Micah 5:2
7 Then Herod had a secret meeting with the wise men from the east. He learned from them the exact time they first saw the star. 8 Then Herod sent the wise men to Bethlehem. He said to them, “Go and look carefully to find the child. When you find him, come tell me. Then I can go worship him too.”
9 The wise men heard the king and then left. They saw the same star they had seen in the east. It went before them until it stopped above the place where the child was. 10 When the wise men saw the star, they were filled with joy. 11 They went to the house where the child was and saw him with his mother, Mary. They bowed down and worshiped the child. They opened the gifts they brought for him. They gave him treasures of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 But God warned the wise men in a dream not to go back to Herod. So they went home to their own country by a different way.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.