Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

The Prayer of an Innocent Person^[a]

Laban Pursues Jacob

²² Three days later Laban was told that Jacob had fled. ²³ He took his men with him and pursued Jacob for seven days until he caught up with him in the hill country of Gilead. ²⁴ In a dream that night God came to Laban and said to him, “Be careful not to threaten Jacob in any way.” ²⁵ Jacob had set up his camp on a mountain, and Laban set up his camp with his relatives in the hill country of Gilead.

²⁶ Laban said to Jacob, “Why did you deceive me and carry off my daughters like women captured in war? ²⁷ Why did you deceive me and slip away without telling me? If you had told me, I would have sent you on your way with rejoicing and singing to the music of tambourines and harps. ²⁸ You did not even let me kiss my grandchildren and my daughters good-bye. That was a foolish thing to do! ²⁹ I have the power to do you harm, but last night the God of your father warned me not to threaten you in any way. ³⁰ I know that you left because you were so anxious to get back home, but why did you steal my household gods?”

³¹ Jacob answered, “I was afraid, because I thought that you might take your daughters away from me. ³² But if you find that anyone here has your gods, he will be put to death. Here, with our men as witnesses, look for anything that belongs to you and take what is yours.” Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen Laban's gods.

³³ Laban went and searched Jacob's tent; then he went into Leah's tent, and the tent of the two slave women, but he did not find his gods. Then he went into Rachel's tent. ³⁴ Rachel had taken the household gods and put them in a camel's saddlebag and was sitting on them. Laban searched through the whole tent, but did not find them. ³⁵ Rachel said to her father, “Do not be angry with me, sir, but I am not able to stand up in your presence; I am having my monthly period.” Laban searched but did not find his household gods.

³⁶ Then Jacob lost his temper. “What crime have I committed?” he asked angrily. “What law have I broken that gives you the right to hunt me down? ³⁷ Now that you have searched through all my belongings, what household article have you found that belongs to you? Put it out here where your men and mine can see it, and let them decide which one of us is right. ³⁸ I have been with you now for twenty years; your sheep and your goats have not failed to reproduce, and I have not eaten any rams from your flocks. ³⁹ Whenever a sheep was killed by wild animals, I always bore the loss myself. I didn't take it to you to show that it was not my fault. You demanded that I make good anything that was stolen during the day or during the night. ⁴⁰ Many times I suffered from the heat during the day and from the cold at night. I was not able to sleep. ⁴¹ It was like that for the whole twenty years I was with you. For fourteen years I worked to win your two daughters—and six years for your flocks. And even then, you changed my wages ten times. ⁴² If the God of my fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac, had not been with me, you would have already sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my trouble and the work I have done, and last night he gave his judgment.”

Prayer of Thanksgiving

⁸ First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because the whole world is hearing about your faith. ⁹ God is my witness that what I say is true—the God whom I serve with all my heart by preaching the Good News about his Son. God knows that I remember you ¹⁰ every time I pray. I ask that God in his good will may at last make it possible for me to visit you now. ¹¹ For I want very much to see you, in order to share a spiritual blessing with you to make you strong. ¹² What I mean is that both you and I will be helped at the same time, you by my faith and I by yours.

^13 (A)You must remember, my friends, that many times I have planned to visit you, but something has always kept me from doing so. I want to win converts among you also, as I have among other Gentiles. ¹⁴ For I have an obligation to all peoples, to the civilized and to the savage, to the educated and to the ignorant. ¹⁵ So then, I am eager to preach the Good News to you also who live in Rome.