Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
147 Praise Yah,
for it is good to sing praises to our God;
for it is pleasant and fitting to praise him.
2 Yahweh builds up Jerusalem.
He gathers together the outcasts of Israel.
3 He heals the broken in heart,
and binds up their wounds.
4 He counts the number of the stars.
He calls them all by their names.
5 Great is our Lord, and mighty in power.
His understanding is infinite.
6 Yahweh upholds the humble.
He brings the wicked down to the ground.
7 Sing to Yahweh with thanksgiving.
Sing praises on the harp to our God,
8 who covers the sky with clouds,
who prepares rain for the earth,
who makes grass grow on the mountains.
9 He provides food for the livestock,
and for the young ravens when they call.
10 He doesn’t delight in the strength of the horse.
He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man.
11 Yahweh takes pleasure in those who fear him,
in those who hope in his loving kindness.
20 He has not done this for just any nation.
They don’t know his ordinances.
Praise Yah!
36 Elihu also continued, and said,
2 “Bear with me a little, and I will show you;
for I still have something to say on God’s behalf.
3 I will get my knowledge from afar,
and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker.
4 For truly my words are not false.
One who is perfect in knowledge is with you.
5 “Behold, God is mighty, and doesn’t despise anyone.
He is mighty in strength of understanding.
6 He doesn’t preserve the life of the wicked,
but gives justice to the afflicted.
7 He doesn’t withdraw his eyes from the righteous,
but with kings on the throne,
he sets them forever, and they are exalted.
8 If they are bound in fetters,
and are taken in the cords of afflictions,
9 then he shows them their work,
and their transgressions, that they have behaved themselves proudly.
10 He also opens their ears to instruction,
and commands that they return from iniquity.
11 If they listen and serve him,
they will spend their days in prosperity,
and their years in pleasures.
12 But if they don’t listen, they will perish by the sword;
they will die without knowledge.
13 “But those who are godless in heart lay up anger.
They don’t cry for help when he binds them.
14 They die in youth.
Their life perishes among the unclean.
15 He delivers the afflicted by their affliction,
and opens their ear in oppression.
16 Yes, he would have allured you out of distress,
into a wide place, where there is no restriction.
That which is set on your table would be full of fatness.
17 “But you are full of the judgment of the wicked.
Judgment and justice take hold of you.
18 Don’t let riches entice you to wrath,
neither let the great size of a bribe turn you aside.
19 Would your wealth sustain you in distress,
or all the might of your strength?
20 Don’t desire the night,
when people are cut off in their place.
21 Take heed, don’t regard iniquity;
for you have chosen this rather than affliction.
22 Behold, God is exalted in his power.
Who is a teacher like him?
23 Who has prescribed his way for him?
Or who can say, ‘You have committed unrighteousness’?
9 Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Haven’t I seen Jesus Christ, our Lord? Aren’t you my work in the Lord? 2 If to others I am not an apostle, yet at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.
3 My defense to those who examine me is this: 4 Have we no right to eat and to drink? 5 Have we no right to take along a wife who is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles, and the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? 6 Or have only Barnabas and I no right to not work? 7 What soldier ever serves at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard, and doesn’t eat of its fruit? Or who feeds a flock, and doesn’t drink from the flock’s milk?
8 Do I speak these things according to the ways of men? Or doesn’t the law also say the same thing? 9 For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain.”(A) Is it for the oxen that God cares, 10 or does he say it assuredly for our sake? Yes, it was written for our sake, because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should partake of his hope. 11 If we sowed to you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we reap your fleshly things? 12 If others partake of this right over you, don’t we yet more?
Nevertheless we didn’t use this right, but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the Good News of Christ. 13 Don’t you know that those who serve around sacred things eat from the things of the temple, and those who wait on the altar have their portion with the altar? 14 Even so the Lord ordained that those who proclaim the Good News should live from the Good News.
15 But I have used none of these things, and I don’t write these things that it may be done so in my case; for I would rather die, than that anyone should make my boasting void. 16 For if I preach the Good News, I have nothing to boast about, for necessity is laid on me; but woe is to me if I don’t preach the Good News.
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