Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
The King Has Haman Executed
7 So the king and Haman came to dine[a] with Queen Esther. 2 On the second day of the banquet of wine the king asked Esther, “What is your request, Queen Esther? It shall be granted to you. And what is your petition? Ask for up to half the kingdom, and it shall be done.”
3 Queen Esther replied, “If I have met with your approval,[b] O king, and if the king is so inclined, grant me my life as my request, and my people as my petition. 4 For we have been sold[c]—both I and my people—to destruction and to slaughter and to annihilation. If we had simply been sold as male and female slaves, I would have remained silent, for such distress would not have been sufficient for troubling the king.”
5 Then King Ahasuerus responded[d] to Queen Esther, “Who is this individual? Where is this person to be found who is presumptuous enough[e] to act in this way?”
6 Esther replied, “The oppressor and enemy is this evil Haman!”
Then Haman became terrified in the presence of the king and queen.
Footnotes
- Esther 7:1 tn Heb “to drink”; NASB “to drink wine.” The expression is a metaphor for lavish feasting, cf. NRSV “to feast”; KJV “to banquet.”
- Esther 7:3 tn Heb “If I have found grace in your eyes” (so also in 8:5); TEV “If it please Your Majesty.”
- Esther 7:4 sn The passive verb (“have been sold”) is noncommittal and nonaccusatory with regard to the king’s role in the decision to annihilate the Jews.
- Esther 7:5 tc The second occurrence of the Hebrew verb וַיּאמֶר (vayyoʾmer, “and he said”) in the MT should probably be disregarded. The repetition is unnecessary in the context and may be the result of dittography in the MT.
- Esther 7:5 tn Heb “has so filled his heart”; NAB “who has dared to do this.”
9 Harbona,[a] one of the king’s eunuchs, said, “Indeed, there is the gallows that Haman made for Mordecai, who spoke out on the king’s behalf. It stands near Haman’s home and is 75 feet[b] high.”
The king said, “Hang him on it!” 10 So they hanged Haman on the very gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. The king’s rage then abated.
Footnotes
- Esther 7:9 sn Cf. 1:10, where Harbona is one of the seven eunuchs sent by the king to summon Queen Vashti to his banquet.
- Esther 7:9 tn Heb “50 cubits.” See the note on this expression in Esth 5:14.
20 Mordecai wrote these matters down and sent letters to all the Jews who were throughout all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, 21 to have them observe the fourteenth and the fifteenth days of the month of Adar each year 22 as the time when the Jews gave themselves rest from their enemies—the month when their trouble was turned to happiness and their mourning to a holiday. These were to be days of banqueting, happiness, sending gifts to one another, and providing for the poor.
Psalm 124[a]
A song of ascents;[b] by David.
124 “If the Lord had not been on our side”—
let Israel say this.—
2 if the Lord had not been on our side,
when men attacked us,[c]
3 they would have swallowed us alive,
when their anger raged against us.
4 The water would have overpowered us;
the current[d] would have overwhelmed[e] us.[f]
5 The raging water
would have overwhelmed us.[g]
6 The Lord deserves praise,[h]
for[i] he did not hand us over as prey to their teeth.
7 We escaped with our lives,[j] like a bird from a hunter’s snare.
The snare broke, and we escaped.
8 Our deliverer is the Lord,[k]
the Creator[l] of heaven and earth.
Footnotes
- Psalm 124:1 sn Psalm 124. Israel acknowledges that the Lord delivered them from certain disaster.
- Psalm 124:1 sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.
- Psalm 124:2 tn Heb “rose up against us.”
- Psalm 124:4 tn Or “stream.”
- Psalm 124:4 tn Heb “would have passed over.”
- Psalm 124:4 tn Heb “our being.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) with a pronominal suffix is often equivalent to a pronoun, especially in poetry (see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a).
- Psalm 124:5 tn Heb “then they would have passed over our being, the raging waters.”
- Psalm 124:6 tn Heb “blessed [be] the Lord.”
- Psalm 124:6 tn Heb “[the one] who.”
- Psalm 124:7 tn Heb “our life escaped.”
- Psalm 124:8 tn Heb “our help [is] in the name of the Lord.”
- Psalm 124:8 tn Or “Maker.”
Prayer for the Sick
13 Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone in good spirits? He should sing praises. 14 Is anyone among you ill? He should summon the elders of the church, and they should pray for him and anoint[a] him with olive oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up—and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.[b] 16 So confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great effectiveness.[c] 17 Elijah was a human being[d] like us, and he prayed earnestly[e] that it would not rain and there was no rain on the land for three years and six months! 18 Then[f] he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land sprouted with a harvest.
19 My brothers and sisters,[g] if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone turns him back, 20 he should know that the one who turns a sinner back from his wandering path[h] will save that person’s[i] soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.
Footnotes
- James 5:14 tn Grk “anointing.”
- James 5:15 tn Grk “it will be forgiven him.”
- James 5:16 tn Or “the fervent prayer of a righteous person is very powerful”; Grk “is very powerful in its working.”
- James 5:17 tn Although it is certainly true that Elijah was a “man,” here ἄνθρωπος (anthrōpos) has been translated as “human being” because the emphasis in context is not on Elijah’s masculine gender, but on the common humanity he shared with the author and the readers.
- James 5:17 tn Grk “he prayed with prayer” (using a Hebrew idiom to show intensity).
- James 5:18 tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events.
- James 5:19 tn Grk “brothers.” See note on the phrase “brothers and sisters” in 1:2.
- James 5:20 tn Grk “from the error of his way” (using the same root as the verb “to wander, to err” in the first part of the verse).
- James 5:20 tn Grk “his soul”; the referent (the sinner mentioned at the beginning of the verse) has been specified in the translation for clarity.
On Jesus’ Side
38 John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he was not following us.” 39 But Jesus said, “Do not stop him, because no one who does a miracle in my name will be able soon afterward to say anything bad about me. 40 For whoever is not against us is for us. 41 For I tell you the truth,[a] whoever gives you a cup of water because[b] you bear Christ’s[c] name will never lose his reward.
42 “If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a huge millstone[d] tied around his neck and to be thrown into the sea. 43 If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off! It is better for you to enter into life crippled than to have[e] two hands and go into hell,[f] to the unquenchable fire.[g] 45 If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off! It is better to enter life lame than to have[h] two feet and be thrown into hell.[i] 47 If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out![j] It is better to enter into the kingdom of God[k] with one eye than to have[l] two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48 where their worm never dies and the fire is never quenched. 49 Everyone will be salted with fire.[m] 50 Salt[n] is good, but if it loses its saltiness,[o] how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”
Footnotes
- Mark 9:41 tn Grk “Truly (ἀμήν, amēn), I say to you.”
- Mark 9:41 tn Grk “in [the] name that of Christ you are.”
- Mark 9:41 tn Or “bear the Messiah’s”; both “Christ” (Greek) and “Messiah” (Hebrew and Aramaic) mean “one who has been anointed.”sn See the note on Christ in 8:29.
- Mark 9:42 tn Grk “the millstone of a donkey.” This refers to a large flat stone turned by a donkey in the process of grinding grain (BDAG 661 s.v. μύλος 2; L&N 7.68-69). The same term is used in the parallel account in Matt 18:6.sn The punishment of drowning with a heavy weight attached is extremely gruesome and reflects Jesus’ views concerning those who cause others who believe in him to sin.
- Mark 9:43 tn Grk “than having.”
- Mark 9:43 sn The word translated hell is “Gehenna” (γέεννα, geenna), a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew words ge hinnom (“Valley of Hinnom”). This was the valley along the south side of Jerusalem. In OT times it was used for human sacrifices to the pagan god Molech (cf. Jer 7:31; 19:5-6; 32:35), and it came to be used as a place where human excrement and rubbish were disposed of and burned. In the intertestamental period, it came to be used symbolically as the place of divine punishment (cf. 1 En. 27:2; 90:26; 4 Ezra 7:36). This Greek term also occurs in vv. 45, 47.
- Mark 9:43 tc Most later mss have 9:44 here and 9:46 after v. 45: “where their worm never dies and the fire is never quenched” (identical with v. 48). Verses 44 and 46 are present in A D Θ ƒ13 M lat syp,h, but lacking in significant Alexandrian mss and several others (א B C L W Δ Ψ 0274 ƒ1 28 565 892 co). This appears to be a scribal addition from v. 48 and is almost certainly not an original part of the Greek text of Mark. The present translation follows NA28 in omitting the verse number, a procedure also followed by a number of other modern translations.
- Mark 9:45 tn Grk “than having.”
- Mark 9:45 tc See tc note at the end of v. 43.
- Mark 9:47 tn Grk “throw it out.”
- Mark 9:47 sn The kingdom of God is a major theme of Jesus’ teaching. The nature of the kingdom of God in the NT and in Jesus’ teaching has long been debated by interpreters and scholars, with discussion primarily centering around the nature of the kingdom (earthly, heavenly, or both) and the kingdom’s arrival (present, future, or both). An additional major issue concerns the relationship between the kingdom of God and the person and work of Jesus himself.
- Mark 9:47 tn Grk “than having.”
- Mark 9:49 tc The earliest mss ([א] B L [W] Δ 0274 ƒ1,13 28* 565 700 sys sa) have the reading adopted by the translation. Codex Bezae (D) and several Itala read “Every sacrifice will be salted with salt.” The majority of other mss (A C Θ Ψ M lat syp,h) have both readings, “Everyone will be salted with fire, and every sacrifice will be salted with salt.” An early scribe may have written the LXX text of Lev 2:13 (“Every sacrifice offering of yours shall be salted with salt”) in the margin of his ms. At a later stage, copyists would either replace the text with this marginal note or add the note to the text. The longer reading thus seems to be the result of the conflation of the Alexandrian reading “salted with fire” and the Western reading “salted with salt.” The reading adopted by the text enjoys the best support and explains the other readings in the ms tradition. sn The statement everyone will be salted with fire is difficult to interpret. It may be a reference to (1) unbelievers who enter hell as punishment for rejection of Jesus, indicating that just as salt preserves so they will be preserved in their punishment in hell forever; (2) Christians who experience suffering in this world because of their attachment to Christ; (3) any person who experiences suffering in a way appropriate to their relationship to Jesus. For believers this means the suffering of purification, and for unbelievers it means hell, i.e., eternal torment.
- Mark 9:50 sn Salt was used as seasoning or fertilizer (BDAG 41 s.v. ἅλας a), or as a preservative. If salt ceased to be useful, it was thrown away. With this illustration Jesus warned about a disciple who ceased to follow him.
- Mark 9:50 sn The difficulty of this saying is understanding how salt could lose its saltiness since its chemical properties cannot change. It is thus often assumed that Jesus was referring to chemically impure salt, perhaps a natural salt which, when exposed to the elements, had all the genuine salt leached out, leaving only the sediment or impurities behind. Others have suggested the background of the saying is the use of salt blocks by Arab bakers to line the floor of their ovens: Under the intense heat these blocks would eventually crystallize and undergo a change in chemical composition, finally being thrown out as unserviceable. A saying in the Talmud (b. Bekhorot 8b) attributed to R. Joshua ben Chananja (ca. a.d. 90), recounts how when he was asked the question “When salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again?” is said to have replied, “By salting it with the afterbirth of a mule.” He was then asked, “Then does the mule (being sterile) bear young?” to which he replied: “Can salt lose its flavor?” The point appears to be both are impossible. The saying, while admittedly late, suggests that culturally the loss of flavor by salt was regarded as an impossibility. Genuine salt can never lose its flavor. In this case the saying by Jesus here may be similar to Matt 19:24, where it is likewise impossible for the camel to go through the eye of a sewing needle.
NET Bible® copyright ©1996-2017 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com All rights reserved.