Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
מ Mem
97 Oh, how I love Your law!
It is my meditation all the day.
98 Your commandments have made me wiser than my enemies,
for they are continually with me.
99 I have more understanding than all my teachers,
for Your testimonies are my meditation.
100 I understand more than the elders,
because I keep Your precepts.
101 I have restrained my feet from every evil way,
that I might keep Your word.
102 I have not departed from Your judgments,
for You have taught me.
103 How sweet are Your words to the taste of my mouth!
Sweeter than honey to my mouth!
104 Through Your precepts I receive understanding;
therefore I hate every false way.
Jeremiah Threatened With Death
26 In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, this word came from the Lord, saying: 2 Thus says the Lord: Stand in the court of the house of the Lord, and speak to all the cities of Judah who come to worship in the house of the Lord all the words that I command you to speak to them. Do not diminish a word. 3 Perhaps they will listen and turn every man from his evil way, that I may repent of the calamity which I purpose to do to them because of the evil of their deeds. 4 You will say to them: Thus says the Lord: If you will not listen to Me, to walk in My law which I have set before you, 5 to listen to the words of My servants the prophets, whom I sent to you, both rising up early and sending them, but you have not listened, 6 then I will make this house like Shiloh and will make this city a curse to all the nations of the earth.
7 So the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the Lord. 8 And when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people, the priests and the prophets and all the people took hold of him, saying, “You shall surely die. 9 Why have you prophesied in the name of the Lord, saying, ‘This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate without an inhabitant’?” And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.
10 When the officials of Judah heard these things, then they came up from the king’s house to the house of the Lord and sat down in the entry of the New Gate of the house of the Lord. 11 Then the priests and the prophets spoke to the officials and to all the people, saying, “This man deserves to die! For he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your ears.”
12 Then Jeremiah spoke to all the officials and to all the people, saying, “The Lord sent me to prophesy against this house and against this city all the words that you have heard. 13 Therefore now amend your ways and your deeds, and obey the voice of the Lord your God; and the Lord will repent of the disaster that He has pronounced against you. 14 As for me, here I am in your hand. Do with me as seems good and right to you. 15 But know for certain that if you put me to death, you will surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves and upon this city and upon the inhabitants. For truly the Lord has sent me to you to speak all these words in your ears.”
22 Then Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus, and said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious. 23 For as I passed by and looked up at your objects of worship, I found an altar with this inscription:
TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Whom you therefore unknowingly worship, Him I proclaim to you.
24 “God who made the world and all things in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by hands. 25 Nor is He served by men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives all men life and breath and all things. 26 He has made from one blood every nation of men to live on the entire face of the earth, having appointed fixed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 27 that they should seek the Lord so perhaps they might reach for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. 28 ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’
29 “Therefore since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to suppose that the Deity is like gold or silver or stone or an engraved work of art or an image of the reflection of man. 30 God overlooked the times of ignorance, but now He commands all men everywhere to repent. 31 For He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He has appointed, having given assurance of this to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
32 When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed. But others said, “We will hear you again concerning this matter.” 33 So Paul departed from them. 34 However, some men joined him and believed. Among them were Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.