Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
A psalm of David.
28 Lord, my Rock, I call out to you.
Pay attention to me.
If you remain silent, I will die.
I will be like those who go down into the grave.
2 Hear my cry for your favor
when I call out to you for help.
Hear me when I lift up my hands in prayer
toward your Most Holy Room.
3 Don’t drag me away with sinners.
Don’t drag me away with those who do evil.
They speak in a friendly way to their neighbors.
But their hearts are full of hate.
4 Pay them back for their evil actions.
Pay them back for what their hands have done.
Give them exactly what they should get.
5 They don’t care about the Lord’s mighty acts.
They don’t care about what his hands have done.
So he will tear them down.
He will never build them up again.
6 Give praise to the Lord.
He has heard my cry for his favor.
7 The Lord gives me strength. He is like a shield that keeps me safe.
My heart trusts in him, and he helps me.
My heart jumps for joy.
With my song I praise him.
8 The Lord gives strength to his people.
He guards and saves his anointed king.
9 Save your people. Bless those who belong to you.
Be their shepherd. Take care of them forever.
Joseph and the Wife of Potiphar
39 Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. An Egyptian named Potiphar had bought him from the Ishmaelite traders who had taken him there. Potiphar was one of Pharaoh’s officials. He was the captain of the palace guard.
2 The Lord was with Joseph. He gave him great success. Joseph lived in Potiphar’s house. 3 Joseph’s master saw that the Lord was with him. He saw that the Lord made Joseph successful in everything he did. 4 So Potiphar was pleased with Joseph and made him his attendant. He put Joseph in charge of his house. He trusted Joseph to take care of everything he owned. 5 From that time on, the Lord blessed Potiphar’s family and servants because of Joseph. He blessed everything Potiphar had in his house and field. 6 So Joseph took good care of everything Potiphar owned. With Joseph in charge, Potiphar didn’t have to worry about anything except the food he ate.
Joseph was strong and handsome. 7 After a while, his master’s wife noticed Joseph. She said to him, “Come to bed with me!”
8 But he refused. “My master has put me in charge,” he told her. “Now he doesn’t have to worry about anything in the house. He trusts me to take care of everything he owns. 9 No one in this house is in a higher position than I am. My master hasn’t held anything back from me, except you. You are his wife. So how could I do an evil thing like that? How could I sin against God?” 10 She spoke to Joseph day after day. But he told her he wouldn’t go to bed with her. He didn’t even want to be with her.
11 One day Joseph went into the house to take care of his duties. None of the family servants was inside. 12 Potiphar’s wife grabbed him by his coat. “Come to bed with me!” she said. But he left his coat in her hand. And he ran out of the house.
13 She saw that he had left his coat in her hand and had run out of the house. 14 So she called her servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew slave has been brought here to make fun of us! He came in here to force me to have sex with him. But I screamed for help. 15 He heard my scream. So he left his coat beside me and ran out of the house.”
16 She kept Joseph’s coat with her until Potiphar came home. 17 Then she told him her story. She said, “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to rape me. 18 But I screamed for help. So he left his coat beside me and ran out of the house.”
19 Potiphar’s wife told him, “That’s how your slave treated me.” When Joseph’s master heard her story, he became very angry. 20 So he put Joseph in prison. It was the place where the king’s prisoners were kept.
While Joseph was there in the prison, 21 the Lord was with him. He was kind to him. So the man running the prison was pleased with Joseph. 22 He put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners. He made him responsible for everything done there. 23 The man who ran the prison didn’t pay attention to anything in Joseph’s care. That’s because the Lord was with Joseph. He gave Joseph success in everything he did.
14 What should we say then? Is God unfair? Not at all! 15 He said to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy.
I will show love to those I love.” (Exodus 33:19)
16 So it doesn’t depend on what people want or what they do. It depends on God’s mercy. 17 In Scripture, God says to Pharaoh, “I had a special reason for making you king. I decided to use you to show my power. I wanted my name to become known everywhere on earth.” (Exodus 9:16) 18 So God does what he wants to do. He shows mercy to one person and makes another stubborn.
19 One of you will say to me, “Then why does God still blame us? Who can oppose what he wants to do?” 20 But you are a mere human being. So who are you to talk back to God? Scripture says, “Can what is made say to the one who made it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” (Isaiah 29:16; 45:9) 21 Isn’t the potter free to make different kinds of pots out of the same lump of clay? Some are for special purposes. Others are for ordinary use.
22 What if God chose to show his great anger? What if he chose to make his power known? But he put up with the people he was angry with. They were made to be destroyed. 23 What if he put up with them to show the riches of his glory to other people? Those other people are the ones he shows his mercy to. He made them to receive his glory. 24 We are those people. He has chosen us. We do not come only from the Jewish race. Many of us are not Jews. 25 God says in Hosea,
“I will call those who are not my people ‘my people.’
I will call the one who is not my loved one ‘my loved one.’ ” (Hosea 2:23)
26 He also says,
“Once it was said to them,
‘You are not my people.’
In that very place they will be called ‘children of the living God.’ ” (Hosea 1:10)
27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel. He says,
“The number of people from Israel may be like the sand by the sea.
But only a few of them will be saved.
28 The Lord will carry out his sentence.
He will be quick to carry it out on earth, once and for all.” (Isaiah 10:22,23)
29 Earlier Isaiah had said,
“The Lord who rules over all
left us children and grandchildren.
If he hadn’t, we would have become like Sodom.
We would have been like Gomorrah.” (Isaiah 1:9)
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