Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
A Prayer of Thanksgiving[a]
30 I praise you, Lord, because you have saved me
and kept my enemies from gloating over me.
2 I cried to you for help, O Lord my God,
and you healed me;
3 you kept me from the grave.
I was on my way to the depths below,[b]
but you restored my life.
4 Sing praise to the Lord,
all his faithful people!
Remember what the Holy One has done,
and give him thanks!
5 His anger lasts only a moment,
his goodness for a lifetime.
Tears may flow in the night,
but joy comes in the morning.
6 I felt secure and said to myself,
“I will never be defeated.”
7 You were good to me, Lord;
you protected me like a mountain fortress.
But then you hid yourself from me,
and I was afraid.
8 I called to you, Lord;
I begged for your help:
9 “What will you gain from my death?
What profit from my going to the grave?
Are dead people able to praise you?
Can they proclaim your unfailing goodness?
10 Hear me, Lord, and be merciful!
Help me, Lord!”
11 You have changed my sadness into a joyful dance;
you have taken away my sorrow
and surrounded me with joy.
12 So I will not be silent;
I will sing praise to you.
Lord, you are my God;
I will give you thanks forever.
Elisha and the Rich Woman from Shunem
8 One day Elisha went to Shunem, where a rich woman lived. She invited him to a meal, and from then on every time he went to Shunem he would have his meals at her house. 9 She said to her husband, “I am sure that this man who comes here so often is a holy man. 10 Let's build a small room on the roof, put a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp in it, and he can stay there whenever he visits us.”
11 One day Elisha returned to Shunem and went up to his room to rest. 12 He told his servant Gehazi to go and call the woman. When she came, 13 he said to Gehazi, “Ask her what I can do for her in return for all the trouble she has had in providing for our needs. Maybe she would like me to go to the king or the army commander and put in a good word for her.”
“I have all I need here among my own people,” she answered.
14 Elisha asked Gehazi, “What can I do for her then?”
He answered, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is an old man.”
15 “Tell her to come here,” Elisha ordered. She came and stood in the doorway, 16 (A)and Elisha said to her, “By this time next year you will be holding a son in your arms.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Please, sir, don't lie to me. You are a man of God!”
17 But, as Elisha had said, at about that time the following year she gave birth to a son.
The Conflict in Us
14 We know that the Law is spiritual; but I am a mortal, sold as a slave to sin. 15 (A)I do not understand what I do; for I don't do what I would like to do, but instead I do what I hate. 16 Since what I do is what I don't want to do, this shows that I agree that the Law is right. 17 So I am not really the one who does this thing; rather it is the sin that lives in me. 18 I know that good does not live in me—that is, in my human nature. For even though the desire to do good is in me, I am not able to do it. 19 I don't do the good I want to do; instead, I do the evil that I do not want to do. 20 If I do what I don't want to do, this means that I am no longer the one who does it; instead, it is the sin that lives in me.
21 So I find that this law is at work: when I want to do what is good, what is evil is the only choice I have. 22 My inner being delights in the law of God. 23 But I see a different law at work in my body—a law that fights against the law which my mind approves of. It makes me a prisoner to the law of sin which is at work in my body. 24 What an unhappy man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is taking me to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who does this through our Lord Jesus Christ!
This, then, is my condition: on my own I can serve God's law only with my mind, while my human nature serves the law of sin.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.