Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

6 O LORD, do not rebuke me in Your anger, nor chastise me in Your wrath.

² Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am weak. O LORD, heal me, for my bones are vexed.

³ My soul is also very troubled. But LORD, how long will You delay?

⁴ Return, O LORD. Deliver my soul. Save me for Your mercy’s sake.

⁵ For in death there is no remembrance of You. In the grave, who shall praise You?

⁶ I fainted in my mourning. Every night I cause my bed to swim, and water my couch with my tears.

⁷ My eye is dimmed for grief, and sunk in because of all my enemies.

⁸ Away from me all you workers of iniquity. For the LORD has heard the voice of my weeping.

⁹ The LORD has heard my petition. The LORD will receive my prayer.

¹⁰ All my enemies shall be confounded and very vexed. They shall be turned back and put to shame suddenly. Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the LORD, concerning the words of Cush, the son of Benjamin.

¹⁵ And he turned back to the man of God (he and all his company), and came and stood before him, and said, “Behold now, I know that there is no God in all the world but in Israel. Now, therefore, please receive a reward from your servant.”

¹⁶ But he said, “As the LORD lives (before Whom I stand), I will not receive it.” And he tried to persuade him to take it. But he refused.

¹⁷ Moreover, Naaman said, “Shall there not be given two mules’ load of this earth to your servant? For from now on, your servant will offer neither burnt sacrifice nor offering to any other god except to the LORD.

¹⁸ “In this may the LORD be merciful to your servant: that when my master goes into the House of Rimmon, to worship there, and leans on my hand, and I bow myself in the House of Rimmon—when I do bow down in the House of Rimmon—that the LORD be merciful to your servant in this point.”

¹⁹ To whom he said, “Go in peace.” So, he departed from him, about half a day’s journey of ground.

²¹ Now when these things were completed, Paul purposed by the Spirit to pass through Macedonia and Achaia, and to go to Jerusalem, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.”

²² So he sent two of his assistants, Timothy and Erastus, into Macedonia. But he remained in Asia for a while.

²³ And about that time there arose no small trouble about the Way.

²⁴ For a certain man named Demetrius (a silversmith who made silver shrines of Diana) brought great gains to the craftsmen.

²⁵ He called them together, along with workmen of similar things, and said, “Sirs, you know that by this trade we have wealth.

²⁶ “Moreover, you see and hear that not only at Ephesus, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that things which are made with hands are not Gods.

²⁷ “So that not only is our trade in danger of disrepute, but also the shrine of the great goddess Diana may be despised, causing her magnificence (which all Asia and the world worships) to be destroyed!”