Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Samekh

Ain

⁶ David would go out to fight against the Philistines. On the way home, after the battles, women in every town in Israel would come out to meet him. They sang and danced for joy as they played their tambourines and lyres. They did this right in front of Saul! ⁷ The women sang,

⁸ This song upset Saul and he became very angry. Saul thought, “The women give David credit for killing tens of thousands of the enemy, and they give me credit for only thousands. A little more of this and they will give him the kingdom itself!^[a]” ⁹ So from that time on, Saul watched David very closely.

Saul Is Afraid of David

¹⁰ The next day, an evil spirit from God took control of Saul and he went wild^[b] in his house. David played the harp to calm him as he usually did, ¹¹ but Saul had a spear in his hand. He thought, “I’ll pin David to the wall.” Saul threw the spear twice, but David jumped out of the way both times.

¹² The Lord had left Saul and was now with David, so Saul was afraid of David. ¹³ Saul sent David away and made him a commander over 1000 soldiers. This put David out among the men even more as they went into battle and returned. ¹⁴ The Lord was with David, so he was successful in everything. ¹⁵ Saul saw how successful David was and became even more afraid of him. ¹⁶ But all the people in Israel and Judah loved David because he was out among them and led them into battle.

Saul Wants His Daughter to Marry David

¹⁷ One day Saul said to David, “Here is my oldest daughter, Merab. I will let you marry her. Then you will be like a son to me and you will be a real soldier.^[c] Then you will go and fight the Lord’s battles.” Saul was really thinking, “Now I won’t have to kill David. I will let the Philistines kill him for me.”

¹⁸ But David said, “I am not an important man from an important family. I can’t marry the king’s daughter.”

¹⁹ So when the time came for David to marry Saul’s daughter, Saul let her marry Adriel from Meholah.

²⁰ People told Saul that his daughter Michal loved David. This made Saul happy. ²¹ He thought, “I will use Michal to trap David. I will let Michal marry David, and then I will let the Philistines kill him.” So Saul said to David a second time, “You can marry my daughter today.”

²² Saul commanded his officers to speak to David in private. He told them to say, “Look, the king likes you. His officers like you. You should marry his daughter.”

²³ Saul’s officers said these things to David, but David answered, “Do you think it is easy to become the king’s son-in-law? I am just a poor, ordinary man.”

²⁴ Saul’s officers told Saul what David said. ²⁵ Saul told them, “Say this to David, ‘David, the king doesn’t want you to pay money for his daughter.^[d] He wants to get even with his enemy, so the price for marrying his daughter is 100 Philistine foreskins.’” That was Saul’s secret plan. He thought the Philistines would kill David.

²⁶ Saul’s officers told this to David. David was happy that he had a chance to become the king’s son-in-law, so immediately ²⁷ he and his men went out to fight the Philistines. They killed 200^[e] Philistines. David took these Philistine foreskins and gave them to Saul. He did this because he wanted to become the king’s son-in-law.

Saul let David marry his daughter Michal. ²⁸ He saw that the Lord was with David and he also saw that his daughter, Michal, loved David. ²⁹ So Saul became even more afraid of David and was against him all that time.

³⁰ The Philistine commanders continued to go out to fight the Israelites, but David defeated them every time. He became famous as Saul’s best officer.

The Storm

¹³ Then a good wind began to blow from the south. The men on the ship thought, “This is the wind we wanted, and now we have it!” So they pulled up the anchor. We sailed very close to the island of Crete. ¹⁴ But then a very strong wind called the “Northeaster” came from across the island. ¹⁵ This wind took the ship and carried it away. The ship could not sail against the wind, so we stopped trying and let the wind blow us.

¹⁶ We went below a small island named Cauda. With the island protecting us from the wind, we were able to bring in the lifeboat, but it was very hard to do. ¹⁷ After the men brought the lifeboat in, they tied ropes around the ship to hold it together. The men were afraid that the ship would hit the sandbanks of Syrtis. So they lowered the sail and let the wind carry the ship.

¹⁸ The next day the storm was blowing against us so hard that the men threw some things out of the ship.^{[a] 19} A day later they threw out the ship’s equipment. ²⁰ For many days we could not see the sun or the stars. The storm was very bad. We lost all hope of staying alive—we thought we would die.

²¹ The men did not eat for a long time. Then one day Paul stood up before them and said, “Men, I told you not to leave Crete. You should have listened to me. Then you would not have all this trouble and loss. ²² But now I tell you to be happy. None of you will die, but the ship will be lost. ²³ Last night an angel came to me from God—the God I worship and belong to. ²⁴ The angel said, ‘Paul, don’t be afraid! You must stand before Caesar. And God has given you this promise: He will save the lives of all those sailing with you.’ ²⁵ So men, there is nothing to worry about. I trust God, and I am sure everything will happen just as his angel told me. ²⁶ But we will crash on an island.”

²⁷ On the fourteenth night we were still being blown around in the Adriatic Sea. The sailors thought we were close to land. ²⁸ They threw a rope into the water with a weight on the end of it. They found that the water was 120 feet^[b] deep. They went a little farther and threw the rope in again. It was 90 feet^[c] deep. ²⁹ The sailors were afraid that we would hit the rocks, so they threw four anchors into the water. Then they prayed for daylight to come. ³⁰ Some of the sailors wanted to leave the ship, and they lowered the lifeboat to the water. They wanted the other men to think that they were throwing more anchors from the front of the ship. ³¹ But Paul told the army officer and the other soldiers, “If these men do not stay in the ship, you will lose all hope of survival.” ³² So the soldiers cut the ropes and let the lifeboat fall into the water.

³³ Just before dawn Paul began persuading all the people to eat something. He said, “For the past two weeks you have been waiting and watching. You have not eaten for 14 days. ³⁴ Now I beg you to eat something. You need it to stay alive. None of you will lose even one hair off your heads.” ³⁵ After he said this, Paul took some bread and thanked God for it before all of them. He broke off a piece and began eating. ³⁶ All the men felt better and started eating too. ³⁷ (There were 276 people on the ship.) ³⁸ We ate all we wanted. Then we began making the ship lighter by throwing the grain into the sea.