Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
83 O God, don’t sit idly by, silent and inactive when we pray. Answer us! Deliver us!
2 Don’t you hear the tumult and commotion of your enemies? Don’t you see what they are doing, these proud men who hate the Lord? 3 They are full of craftiness and plot against your people, laying plans to slay your precious ones. 4 “Come,” they say, “and let us wipe out Israel as a nation—we will destroy the very memory of her existence.”
9 Do to them as once you did to Midian, or as you did to Sisera and Jabin at the river Kishon, 10 and as you did to your enemies at Endor, whose decaying corpses fertilized the soil.
17 Make them failures in everything they do; let them be ashamed and terrified 18 until they learn that you alone, Jehovah, are the God above all gods in supreme charge of all the earth.
7 So the king and Haman came to Esther’s banquet. 2 Again, during the wine course, the king asked her, “What is your petition, Queen Esther? What do you wish? Whatever it is, I will give it to you, even if it is half of my kingdom!”
3 And at last Queen Esther replied, “If I have won your favor, O King, and if it please Your Majesty, save my life and the lives of my people. 4 For I and my people have been sold to those who will destroy us. We are doomed to destruction and slaughter. If we were only to be sold as slaves, perhaps I could remain quiet, though even then there would be incalculable damage to the king that no amount of money could begin to cover.”
5 “What are you talking about?” King Ahasuerus demanded. “Who would dare touch you?”
6 Esther replied, “This wicked Haman is our enemy.”
Then Haman grew pale with fright before the king and queen. 7 The king jumped to his feet and went out into the palace garden as Haman stood up to plead for his life to Queen Esther, for he knew that he was doomed. 8 In despair he fell upon the couch where Queen Esther was reclining, just as the king returned from the palace garden.
“Will he even rape the queen right here in the palace, before my very eyes?” the king roared. Instantly the death veil was placed over Haman’s face.
9 Then Harbona, one of the king’s aides, said, “Sir, Haman has just ordered a 75-foot gallows constructed, to hang Mordecai, the man who saved the king from assassination! It stands in Haman’s courtyard.”
“Hang Haman on it,” the king ordered.
10 So they did, and the king’s wrath was pacified.
45 “Are you a wise and faithful servant of the Lord? Have I given you the task of managing my household, to feed my children day by day? 46 Blessings on you if I return and find you faithfully doing your work. 47 I will put such faithful ones in charge of everything I own!
48 “But if you are evil and say to yourself, ‘My Lord won’t be coming for a while,’ 49 and begin oppressing your fellow servants, partying and getting drunk, 50 your Lord will arrive unannounced and unexpected, 51 and severely whip you and send you off to the judgment of the hypocrites; there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.