Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁹ The Lord also will be a refuge and a high tower for the oppressed, a refuge and a stronghold in times of trouble (high cost, destitution, and desperation).

¹⁰ And they who know Your name [who have experience and acquaintance with Your mercy] will lean on and confidently put their trust in You, for You, Lord, have not forsaken those who seek (inquire of and for) You [on the authority of God’s Word and the right of their necessity].^(A)

¹¹ Sing praises to the Lord, Who dwells in Zion! Declare among the peoples His doings!

¹² For He Who avenges the blood [of His people shed unjustly] remembers them; He does not forget the cry of the afflicted (the poor and the humble).

¹³ Have mercy upon me and be gracious to me, O Lord; consider how I am afflicted by those who hate me, You Who lift me up from the gates of death,

¹⁴ That I may show forth (recount and tell aloud) all Your praises! In the gates of the Daughter of Zion I will rejoice in Your salvation and Your saving help.

¹⁵ The nations have sunk down in the pit that they made; in the net which they hid is their own foot caught.

¹⁶ The Lord has made Himself known; He executes judgment; the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Higgaion [meditation]. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

¹⁷ The wicked shall be turned back [headlong into premature death] into Sheol (the place of the departed spirits of the wicked), even all the nations that forget or are forgetful of God.

¹⁸ For the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the expectation and hope of the meek and the poor shall not perish forever.

¹⁹ Arise, O Lord! Let not man prevail; let the nations be judged before You.

²⁰ Put them in fear [make them realize their frail nature], O Lord, that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

¹⁴ But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented and troubled him.

¹⁵ Saul’s servants said to him, Behold, an evil spirit from God torments you.

¹⁶ Let our lord now command your servants here before you to find a man who plays skillfully on the lyre; and when the evil spirit from God is upon you, he will play it, and you will be well.

¹⁷ Saul told his servants, Find me a man who plays well and bring him to me.

¹⁸ One of the young men said, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite who plays skillfully, a valiant man, a man of war, prudent in speech and eloquent, an attractive person; and the Lord is with him.

¹⁹ So Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, Send me David your son, who is with the sheep.

²⁰ And Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine, and a kid and sent them by David his son to Saul.

²¹ And David came to Saul and served him. Saul became very fond of him, and he became his armor-bearer.

²² Saul sent to Jesse, saying, Let David remain in my service, for he pleases me.

²³ And when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, David took a lyre and played it; so Saul was refreshed and became well, and the evil spirit left him.

20 After the uproar had ceased, Paul sent for the disciples and warned and consoled and urged and encouraged them; then he embraced them and told them farewell and set forth on his journey to Macedonia.

² Then after he had gone through those districts and had warned and consoled and urged and encouraged the brethren with much discourse, he came to Greece.

³ Having spent three months there, when a plot was formed against him by the Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he resolved to go back through Macedonia.

⁴ He was accompanied by Sopater the son of Pyrrhus from Beroea, and by the Thessalonians Aristarchus and Secundus, and Gaius of Derbe and Timothy, and the Asians Tychicus and Trophimus.

⁵ These went on ahead and were waiting for us [including Luke] at Troas,

⁶ But we [ourselves] sailed from Philippi after the days of Unleavened Bread [the Passover week], and in five days we joined them at Troas, where we remained for seven days.

⁷ And on the first day of the week, when we were assembled together to break bread [^[a]the Lord’s Supper], Paul discoursed with them, intending to leave the next morning; and he kept on with his message until midnight.

⁸ Now there were numerous lights in the upper room where we were assembled,

⁹ And there was a young man named Eutychus sitting in the window. He was borne down with deep sleep as Paul kept on talking still longer, and [finally] completely overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was picked up dead.

¹⁰ But Paul went down and bent over him and embraced him, saying, Make no ado; his life is within him.

¹¹ When Paul had gone back upstairs and had broken bread and eaten [with them], and after he had talked confidentially and communed with them for a considerable time—until daybreak [in fact]—he departed.

¹² They took the youth home alive, and were not a little comforted and cheered and refreshed and encouraged.

¹³ But going on ahead to the ship, the rest of us set sail for Assos, intending to take Paul aboard there, for that was what he had directed, intending himself to go by land [on foot].

¹⁴ So when he met us at Assos, we took him aboard and sailed on to Mitylene.

¹⁵ And sailing from there, we arrived the day after at a point opposite Chios; the following day we struck across to Samos, and the next day we arrived at Miletus.

¹⁶ For Paul had determined to sail on past Ephesus, lest he might have to spend time [unnecessarily] in [the province of] Asia; for he was hastening on so that he might reach Jerusalem, if at all possible, by the day of Pentecost.