Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 122[a]
The Pilgrim’s Greeting to the Holy City
1 A song of ascents. Of David.
[b]I rejoiced when they said to me,
“Let us go to the house of the Lord.”
2 And finally our feet are standing
at your gates, O Jerusalem.
3 Jerusalem is built as a city
that is firmly bound together[c] in unity.
4 There the tribes go up,
the tribes of the Lord,
as it was decreed for Israel
to celebrate the name of the Lord.[d]
5 For there the thrones of judgment[e] were established,
the thrones of the house of David.
6 Pray for the peace[f] of Jerusalem:
“May those who love you rest secure.
7 May there be peace within your walls
and security in your palaces.”
8 [g]Out of love for my relatives and friends,
I will say, “May peace be within you.”
9 Out of love for the house of the Lord, our God,
I will pray for your well-being.
Chapter 7
1 So the king and Haman went to dine with Queen Esther. 2 And once again, on the second day as they were having wine, the king asked, “Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? Even if it is for half my kingdom, it will be granted you.”
3 Queen Esther replied, “If I have found favor with you, O king, and if it pleases your majesty, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request. 4 For I and my people have been handed over to destruction, slaughter, and extinction. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have not said anything, because such distress would not be reason enough to disturb the king.”[a]
5 Then King Ahasuerus asked Queen Esther, “Who is it and where is the one who has done such a thing?”
6 Esther replied, “Our enemy is this wicked man Haman.”
In terror, Haman faced the king and queen. 7 The king got up in a rage, left his wine, and went out into the palace garden. But Haman stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life, since he feared that the king had already decided his fate.
8 So Haman threw himself upon the couch on which Esther was reclining. At that very moment the king was just returning from the palace garden to the banquet hall. The king exclaimed: “Will he also violate the queen while she is with me in my own house?”
The words were scarcely out of the king’s mouth when Haman’s face was covered. 9 Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs who attended the king, said, “There is a gibbet fifty cubits high at Haman’s house. Haman prepared it for Mordecai, who warned your majesty about the plot.”
The king said, “Hang him on it.” 10 So they hanged Haman on the gibbet he had prepared for Mordecai, and the king’s anger cooled down.
“I Am the First and the Last.”[a] 9 I, John—your brother and partner in the suffering and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are ours in Jesus—was on the island of Patmos[b] because I had proclaimed the word of God and given testimony to Jesus. 10 On the Lord’s day, I was caught up in the spirit,[c] and I heard behind me a loud voice, like the sound of a trumpet, 11 that said, “Write down on a scroll[d] what you see and send it to the seven Churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.
12 Then I turned to see whose voice it was that had spoken to me, and when I turned I beheld seven gold lampstands. 13 [e]And in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man,[f] dressed in a robe that reached down to his feet and with a golden breastplate around his chest. 14 His head and his hair were white with the whiteness of wool, like snow, and his eyes were like a burning flame. 15 His feet were like burnished bronze refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars. From his mouth there protruded a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face shone like the sun in all its brilliance.
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead, but he laid his right hand on me and said, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One. 18 I was dead, but now I am alive forevermore, and I hold the keys to death and the netherworld.
19 “Now write down what you have seen, what is happening now, and what will take place afterward. 20 The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and of the seven gold lampstands, is this: the seven stars are the angels of the seven Churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven Churches themselves.
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