Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
A song. A Psalm of Asaph
A Plea for Judgment
83 God, do not rest!
Don’t be silent!
Don’t stay inactive, God!
2 See! Your enemies rage;
those who hate you issue threats.[a]
3 They plot against[b] your people
and conspire against your cherished ones.
4 They say, “Let us go and erase them as a nation
so the name of Israel will not be remembered anymore.”
17 Let them be humiliated and terrified permanently
until they die in shame.[a]
18 Then they will know that you alone—
whose name is Lord—
are the Most High over all the earth.
Haman is Executed
7 The king and Haman went in to have a drink with Queen Esther. 2 On the second day the king again told Esther as they drank wine, “What’s your petition, Queen Esther? It will be given to you. What’s your request? Up to half of the kingdom, and it will be done.”
3 Queen Esther answered: “If I’ve found favor with you, your majesty, and if it seems good to the king, let my life be given to me as my petition and my people as my request. 4 Indeed, I and my people have been sold to be annihilated, killed, and destroyed. If we had just been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because the trouble wouldn’t have been sufficient to bother the king.”[a]
5 Then King Ahasuerus asked Queen Esther, “Who is this, and where is the person who would dare[b] do this?”
6 Esther replied, “An adversary and an enemy—it’s this wicked Haman!” So Haman was terrified before the king and the queen. 7 The king got up from the banquet in anger and went out to the palace garden, while Haman stood there begging Queen Esther to spare his life,[c] because he realized that the king intended to harm him.[d]
8 When the king returned to the banquet hall from the palace garden, Haman was prostrate on the couch where Esther was. The king asked, “Will this man[e] even assault the queen with me in the house?” The king had no sooner spoken than they covered Haman’s face. 9 Then Harbonah, one of the eunuchs attending the king, observed, “Look there! A pole is standing 50 cubits[f] high at Haman’s house that he prepared for Mordecai, whose report benefitted[g] the king!”
The king said, “Hang[h] him on it.” 10 So they hanged[i] Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai, and then the king’s anger subsided.
The Faithful or the Wicked Servant(A)
45 “Who, then, is the faithful and wise servant whom his master has put in charge of his household to give the others[a] their food at the right time? 46 How blessed is that servant whom his master finds doing this when he comes! 47 I tell all of you[b] with certainty, he will put him in charge of all his property.
48 “But if that wicked servant says to himself,[c] ‘My master has been delayed,’ 49 and begins to beat his fellow servants and eat and drink with the drunks, 50 that servant’s master will come on a day when he doesn’t expect him and at an hour that he doesn’t know. 51 Then his master[d] will punish him severely[e] and assign him a place with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”[f]
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