Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A Davidic Song of Ascents

Up to Jerusalem

Haman is Executed

7 The king and Haman went in to have a drink with Queen Esther. ² On the second day the king again told Esther as they drank wine, “What’s your petition, Queen Esther? It will be given to you. What’s your request? Up to half of the kingdom, and it will be done.”

³ Queen Esther answered: “If I’ve found favor with you, your majesty, and if it seems good to the king, let my life be given to me as my petition and my people as my request. ⁴ Indeed, I and my people have been sold to be annihilated, killed, and destroyed. If we had just been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because the trouble wouldn’t have been sufficient to bother the king.”^[a]

⁵ Then King Ahasuerus asked Queen Esther, “Who is this, and where is the person who would dare^[b] do this?”

⁶ Esther replied, “An adversary and an enemy—it’s this wicked Haman!” So Haman was terrified before the king and the queen. ⁷ The king got up from the banquet in anger and went out to the palace garden, while Haman stood there begging Queen Esther to spare his life,^[c] because he realized that the king intended to harm him.^[d]

⁸ When the king returned to the banquet hall from the palace garden, Haman was prostrate on the couch where Esther was. The king asked, “Will this man^[e] even assault the queen with me in the house?” The king had no sooner spoken than they covered Haman’s face. ⁹ Then Harbonah, one of the eunuchs attending the king, observed, “Look there! A pole is standing 50 cubits^[f] high at Haman’s house that he prepared for Mordecai, whose report benefitted^[g] the king!”

The king said, “Hang^[h] him on it.” ¹⁰ So they hanged^[i] Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai, and then the king’s anger subsided.

John’s Vision of the Messiah

⁹ I am John, your brother and partner in the oppression, kingdom, and patience that comes because of Jesus. I was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony about Jesus. ¹⁰ I came to be in the Spirit on the Day of the Lord, when I heard a loud voice behind me like a trumpet, ¹¹ saying, “Write on a scroll what you see, and send it to the seven churches: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”

¹² Then I turned to see who^[a] was talking to me, and when I turned I saw seven gold lamp stands. ¹³ Among the lamp stands there was someone like the Son of Man. He was wearing a long robe with a gold sash around his chest.^{[b] 14} His head and his hair were white like wool, in fact, as white as snow. His eyes were like flames of fire, ¹⁵ his feet were like glowing bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of raging waters. ¹⁶ In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword. His face was like the sun when it shines with full force.

¹⁷ When I saw him, I fell down at his feet like a dead man. But he placed his right hand on me and said, “Stop being afraid! I am the first and the last, ¹⁸ the living one. I was dead—but look!—I am alive forever and ever! I have the keys of Death and Hades.^{[c] 19} Therefore, write down what you have seen, what is, and what is going to happen after this. ²⁰ The secret meaning of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven gold lamp stands is this: the seven stars are the messengers^[d] of the seven churches, and the seven lamp stands are the seven churches.”