Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Davidic^[a]

Patiently Trust in God

¹⁸ But Judah approached him and begged him, “Your Excellency, please allow your servant to speak to you privately.^[a] Please don’t be angry with your servant, since you are equal to Pharaoh. ¹⁹ Your Excellency asked his servants, ‘Do you have a father or brother?’ ²⁰ and we answered Your Excellency, ‘We have an aged father and a younger child who was born when he was old. His brother is now dead, so he’s the only surviving son of his mother. His father loves him.’

²¹ “But then you ordered your servants, ‘Bring him here to me so I can see him for myself.’ ²² So we told Your Excellency, ‘The young man cannot leave his father, because if he were to do so, his father would die.’ ²³ But then you told your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes back with you, you won’t see my face again.’ ²⁴ Later on, after we had gone back to your servant, my father, we told him what Your Excellency had said.

²⁵ “‘Go back,’ our father ordered, ‘and buy us a little food.’

²⁶ “But we told him, ‘We can’t go back there. If our youngest brother accompanies us, we’ll go back, but we cannot see the man’s face again unless our youngest brother accompanies us.’

²⁷ “Then your servant, our father, told us, ‘You know my wife bore me two sons. ²⁸ One of them left me, so I concluded “I’m certain that he has been torn to pieces,” and I haven’t seen him since then. ²⁹ If you take this one from me, too, and then something harmful happens to him, then it will be death for me and my sad, gray hair!’^[b]

³⁰ “So when I go back to your servant, my father, and the young man isn’t with us, since he’s constantly living life focused on his son,^{[c] 31} when he notices that the young man hasn’t come back with us, he’ll die, and your servants really will have brought death to your servant, our father,^[d] along with his sad, gray hair! ³² Also, your servant pledged his own life as^[e] a guarantee of the young man’s safety. I told my father, ‘If I don’t bring him back to you, you can blame me forever.’ ³³ Therefore, please allow your servant to remain as a slave to Your Excellency, instead of the young man, and let the young man go back home with his brothers. ³⁴ After all, how can I go back to my father if the young man doesn’t accompany me? I’m afraid of what might happen to my father.”

Settling with Your Opponent^(A)

⁵⁷ “Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? ⁵⁸ For example, when you go with your opponent in front of a ruler, do your best to settle with him on the way there. Otherwise, you will be dragged in front of the judge, and the judge will hand you over to an officer, and the officer will throw you into prison. ⁵⁹ I tell you, you will never get out of there until you pay back the last penny!”