Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

6 No, Lord! Don’t punish me in the heat of your anger. ² Pity me, O Lord, for I am weak. Heal me, for my body is sick, ³ and I am upset and disturbed. My mind is filled with apprehension and with gloom. Oh, restore me soon.

⁴ Come, O Lord, and make me well. In your kindness save me. ⁵ For if I die, I cannot give you glory by praising you before my friends.^{[a] 6} I am worn out with pain; every night my pillow is wet with tears. ⁷ My eyes are growing old and dim with grief because of all my enemies.

⁸ Go, leave me now, you men of evil deeds, for the Lord has heard my weeping ⁹ and my pleading. He will answer all my prayers. ¹⁰ All my enemies shall be suddenly dishonored, terror-stricken, and disgraced. God will turn them back in shame.

¹⁵ Then he and his entire party went back to find the prophet; they stood humbly before him and Naaman said, “I know at last that there is no God in all the world except in Israel; now please accept my gifts.”

¹⁶ But Elisha replied, “I swear by Jehovah my God that I will not accept them.”

Naaman urged him to take them, but he absolutely refused. ¹⁷ “Well,” Naaman said, “all right. But please give me two muleloads of earth to take back with me, for from now on I will never again offer any burnt offerings or sacrifices to any other god except the Lord.^{[a] 18} However, may the Lord pardon me this one thing—when my master the king goes into the temple of the god Rimmon to worship there and leans on my arm, may the Lord pardon me when I bow too.”

¹⁹ “All right,” Elisha said. So Naaman started home again.

²¹ Afterwards Paul felt impelled by the Holy Spirit^[a] to go across to Greece before returning to Jerusalem. “And after that,” he said, “I must go on to Rome!” ²² He sent his two assistants, Timothy and Erastus, on ahead to Greece while he stayed awhile longer in Asia Minor.

²³ But about that time, a big blowup developed in Ephesus concerning the Christians. ²⁴ It began with Demetrius, a silversmith who employed many craftsmen to manufacture silver shrines of the Greek goddess Diana. ²⁵ He called a meeting of his men, together with others employed in related trades, and addressed them as follows:

“Gentlemen, this business is our income. ²⁶ As you know so well from what you’ve seen and heard, this man Paul has persuaded many, many people that handmade gods aren’t gods at all. As a result, our sales volume is going down! And this trend is evident not only here in Ephesus, but throughout the entire province! ²⁷ Of course, I am not only talking about the business aspects of this situation and our loss of income, but also of the possibility that the temple of the great goddess Diana will lose its influence, and that Diana—this magnificent goddess worshiped not only throughout this part of Turkey but all around the world—will be forgotten!”