Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
17 Hear what is right, O LORD. Consider my cry. Hear my prayer of unfeigned lips.
2 Let my sentence come forth from Your presence. And let Your eyes behold equity.
3 You have tested and visited my heart in the night. You have tried me and found nothing. For I have purposed that my mouth should not offend.
4 Concerning the works of men, by the words of Your lips I kept myself from the paths of the cruel man.
5 Keep my steps in Your paths, so that my feet do not slide.
6 I have called upon You. Surely You will hear me, O God. Incline Your ear to me and hear my words.
7 Show Your marvelous mercies, You Who are the Savior of those who trust in You from such as resist Your right hand.
15 But I will behold Your face in righteousness. And when I awake, I shall be satisfied with Your image. To him who excels: A Psalm of David, the servant of the LORD. Who spoke to the LORD the words of this song on the day that the LORD delivered him from the hand of all his enemies (and from the hand of Saul) and said,
22 And three days later, Laban was told that Jacob fled.
23 Then he took his brothers with him and followed after him seven days’ journey and overtook him at Mount Gilead.
24 And God came to Laban the Aramite in a dream by night, and said to him, “Be careful that you speak to Jacob neither good nor bad.”
25 Then Laban overtook Jacob; and Jacob had pitched his tent on the Mount. And Laban, with his brothers, pitched upon Mount Gilead.
26 Then Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done? You have even stolen away my heart and carried away my daughters, as though they had been taken captives with the sword.
27 “Why did you flee so secretly and steal away from me, and did not tell me, so that I might have sent you forth with mirth and with songs, with timbrel and with harp?
28 “But you have not allowed me to kiss my sons and my daughters. Now, you have done foolishly in doing so.
29 “I am able to do you evil. But the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful that you speak neither good nor bad to Jacob.’
30 “Now, you went your way because you greatly longed after your father’s house. Yet why have you stolen my gods?”
31 Then Jacob answered, and said to Laban, “Because I was afraid and thought that you would have taken your daughters from me.
32 “With whomever you find your gods, let him not live. Search what I have in the presence of my brothers and take what is yours, (but Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen them.)
33 Then Laban went into Jacob’s tent, and into Leah’s tent, and into the two maid’s tents, but did not find them. So, he went out of Leah’s tent and entered into Rachel’s tent
34 (now Rachel had taken the idols and put them in the camel’s straw and sat down upon them). And Laban searched the entire tent but did not find them.
35 Then she said to her father, “My Lord, do not be angry but I cannot rise up before you. For the custom of women is upon me.” So, he searched but did not find the idols.
36 Then Jacob was angry and argued with Laban. Jacob also answered and said to Laban, “What have I trespassed? What have I offended, that you have pursued after me?
37 “Seeing you have searched all my stuff, what have you found of all your household stuff? Put it here before my brothers and your brothers, so that they may judge between us both.
38 “This past twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your goats have not miscarried their young; and I have not eaten the rams of your flock.
39 “Whatever was torn by beasts I did not bring to you but made it good myself. Of my hand did you require it, were it stolen by day or stolen by night.
40 “I was consumed with heat in the day, and with frost in the night, and my sleep departed from my eyes.
41 “Thus have I been in your house twenty years. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your sheep; and you have changed my wages ten times.
42 “Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had been with me, surely you would have sent me away now empty. But God beheld my tribulation, and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night.”
8 First, I thank my God (through Jesus Christ) for you all, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world.
9 For God is my witness (whom I serve in my spirit in the Gospel of His Son) that without ceasing I make mention of you,
10 always imploring in my prayers that by some means, at one time or other, I might have a prosperous journey, by the will of God, to come to you.
11 For I long to see you, that I might bestow among you some spiritual gift, that you might be strengthened.
12 That is to say that I might also be comforted with you, through our mutual faith, both yours and mine.
13 Now, my brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant of how often I have intended to come to you (but have been hindered) that I might also have some fruit among you, as I have among the other Gentiles.
14 I am debtor, both to the Greeks and to the barbarians; both to the wise and to the unwise.
15 Therefore, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you also who are in Rome.
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