Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

²⁶ Also Yarov‘am the son of N’vat, an Efrati from Tz’redah, whose mother’s name was Tz’ru‘ah, one of Shlomo’s servants, rebelled against the king. ²⁷ Here is the reason he rebelled against the king: Shlomo was building the Millo and closing the breach in [the wall of] the City of David his father. ²⁸ Now this Yarov‘am was a strong, energetic man; and Shlomo, seeing how serious the young man was, made him supervisor over all the work being done by the tribe of Yosef. ²⁹ Once, during this period, when Yarov‘am had gone out of Yerushalayim, the prophet Achiyah from Shiloh spotted him traveling. Achiyah was wearing a new cloak, and the two of them were alone in open country. ³⁰ Achiyah took hold of his new cloak that he was wearing and tore it into twelve pieces. ³¹ Then he said to Yarov‘am, “Take ten pieces for yourself! For here is what Adonai the God of Isra’el says: ‘I am going to tear the kingdom out of Shlomo’s hand, and I will give ten tribes to you. ³² But he will keep one tribe for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Yerushalayim, the city I have chosen from all the tribes of Isra’el. ³³ I will do this because they have abandoned me and worshipped ‘Ashtoret the goddess of the Tzidoni, K’mosh the god of Mo’av and Milkom the god of the people of ‘Amon. They haven’t lived according to my ways, so that they could do what was right in my view and obey my regulations and rulings, as did David his father. ³⁴ Nevertheless, I will not take the entire kingdom away from him; but I will make him prince as long as he lives, for the sake of David my servant, whom I chose, because he obeyed my mitzvot and regulations. ³⁵ However, I will take the kingdom away from his son and give ten tribes of it to you. ³⁶ To his son I will give one tribe, so that David my servant will always have a light burning before me in Yerushalayim, the city I chose for myself as the place to put my name. ³⁷ I will take you, and you will rule over everything you want; you will be king over Isra’el. ³⁸ Now if you will listen to all that I order you, live according to my ways and do what is right in my view, so that you observe my regulations and mitzvot, as David my servant did; then I will be with you, and I will build you a lasting dynasty, as I built for David; and I will give Isra’el to you. ³⁹ For this [offense] I will trouble David’s descendants, but not forever.” ⁴⁰ Because of this Shlomo tried to kill Yarov‘am; but Yarov‘am roused himself, fled to Egypt, to Shishak king of Egypt, and stayed in Egypt until the death of Shlomo.

¹² Now when I went to Troas to proclaim the Good News of the Messiah, since a door had been opened for me by the Lord, ¹³ I could not rest, because I failed to find my brother Titus. So I left the people there and went on to Macedonia.

¹⁴ But thanks be to God, who in the Messiah constantly leads us in a triumphal procession and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of what it means to know him! ¹⁵ For to God we are the aroma of the Messiah, both among those being saved and among those being lost; ¹⁶ to the latter, we are the smell of death leading only to more death; but to the former, we are the sweet smell of life leading to more life. Who is equal to such a task? ¹⁷ For we are not like a lot of folks who go about huckstering God’s message for a fee; on the contrary, we speak out of a sincere heart, as people sent by God, standing in God’s presence, living in union with the Messiah.