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.
6 1-2 One day the seminary students came to Elisha and told him, “As you can see, our dormitory is too small. Tell us, as our president, whether we can build a new one down beside the Jordan River, where there are plenty of logs.”
“All right,” he told them, “go ahead.”
3 “Please, sir, come with us,” someone suggested.
“I will,” he said.
4 When they arrived at the Jordan, they began cutting down trees; 5 but as one of them was chopping, his axhead fell into the river.
“Oh, sir,” he cried, “it was borrowed!”
6 “Where did it fall?” the prophet asked. The youth showed him the place, and Elisha cut a stick and threw it into the water; and the axhead rose to the surface and floated! 7 “Grab it,” Elisha said to him; and he did.
13 What horrors await you, you cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida! For if the miracles I did for you had been done in the cities of Tyre and Sidon,[a] their people would have sat in deep repentance long ago, clothed in sackcloth and throwing ashes on their heads to show their remorse. 14 Yes, Tyre and Sidon will receive less punishment on the Judgment Day than you. 15 And you people of Capernaum, what shall I say about you? Will you be exalted to heaven? No, you shall be brought down to hell.”
16 Then he said to the disciples, “Those who welcome you are welcoming me. And those who reject you are rejecting me. And those who reject me are rejecting God who sent me.”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.