Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
20 I have found David, my servant.
With my holy oil I have anointed him,
21 with whom my hand will be steadfast.
Surely my arm will strengthen him.
22 The enemy will not deceive him,
and no evil man[a] will afflict him.
23 But I will crush his adversaries before him,
and I will strike those who hate him.
24 And so my faithfulness
and my loyal love will be with him,
and in my name his horn will rise up.
25 And I will set his hand on the sea
and his right hand on the rivers.
26 He will call out to me, ‘You are my Father,
my God, and the rock of my salvation.’
27 I will also make him the firstborn,
the highest of the kings of the earth.
28 Forever I will keep my loyal love for him,
and my covenant will be reliable for him.
29 I will also establish his offspring forever,
and his throne as the days of the heavens.
30 If his sons forsake my law
and do not walk in my judgments,
31 if they defile[b] my statutes
and do not keep my commandments,
32 then I will punish their transgression with a rod,
and their guilt with wounds.
33 But I will not break off my loyal love from him,
and I will not be false against my faithfulness.
34 I will not defile[c] my covenant,
or alter what proceeded from my lips.
35 Once[d] I have sworn by my holiness,
‘I will surely not lie to David,
36 His offspring will endure[e] forever,
and his throne as the sun before me.
37 Like the moon it will be steadfast forever,
and like an enduring witness in the sky.’” Selah
Paul in Athens
16 Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he[a] observed the city was full of idols. 17 So he was discussing in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles,[b] and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 And even some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him, and some were saying, “What does this babbler want to say?” But others said,[c] “He appears to be a proclaimer of foreign deities,” because he was proclaiming the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took hold of him and[d] brought him[e] to the Areopagus, saying, “May we learn what is this new teaching being proclaimed by you? 20 For you are bringing some astonishing things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.”[f] 21 (Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who stayed there used to spend their time in nothing else than telling something or listening to something new.)
Paul Speaks to the Areopagus
22 So Paul stood there in the middle of the Areopagus and[g] said, “Men of Athens, I see you are very religious in every respect.[h] 23 For as I[i] was passing through and observing carefully your objects of worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed, ‘To an unknown God.’ Therefore what you worship without knowing it,[j] this I proclaim to you— 24 the God who made the world and all the things in it. This one, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by human hands, 25 nor is he served by human hands as if he[k] needed anything, because[l] he himself gives to everyone life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every nation of humanity to live on all the face of the earth, determining their fixed times and the fixed boundaries of their habitation, 27 to search for God, if perhaps indeed they might feel around for him and find him.[m] And indeed he is not far away from each one of us, 28 for in him we live and move and exist,[n] as even some of your own[o] poets have said: ‘For we also are his[p] offspring.’[q] 29 Therefore, because we[r] are offspring of God, we ought not to think the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought. 30 Therefore although[s] God has overlooked the times of ignorance, he now commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man who he has appointed, having provided proof to everyone by[t] raising him from the dead.”
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