Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Mem
97 Oh, how I love Your law!
I fix my mind on it all day long.
98 Your commands make me wiser than my enemies
because they are always with me.
99 I have more discernment than all my teachers
because I study and meditate on Your testimonies.
100 I comprehend more than those who are my elders
because I have kept Your precepts.
101 I have kept my feet from walking the paths of evil
so that I may live according to Your word.
102 I have not neglected Your lessons,
for You, God, have been my teacher.
103 Your words are sweet to my taste!
Yes, they are sweeter than honey in my mouth!
104 I gain understanding from Your instructions;
that’s why I hate every deceitful path.
26 The word of the Eternal came to Jeremiah not long after Jehoiakim (son of Josiah) began his reign as king of Judah.
Eternal One: 2 Stand in the court of My temple, and speak to the crowds who have come to worship from all the towns of Judah. Give them all of My words, Jeremiah; don’t leave out a single one. 3 Maybe they will listen this time, and each one of them will stop the evil actions and return to My path. Then I, too, will stop the impending disaster I have planned for them because of all the evil things they do. 4 Tell them what the Eternal says: “If you will not listen to Me or obey My law that I have already given you, 5 and if you will not listen to what My servants the prophets have to say even after I’ve sent them to you again and again, 6 then I will deal with this temple as I did Shiloh. But this time I will also make this very city a curse for all the nations of the earth.”
7 The priests and the so-called prophets and the crowds heard the message Jeremiah delivered in the temple of the Eternal. 8 As soon as Jeremiah finished saying all the Eternal directed him to say, the priests, the prophets, and those who stopped to listen grabbed him and began to shout.
Temple Audience: You deserve to die! 9 Why have you uttered such prophecies in the name of the Eternal declaring that this temple will be destroyed like Shiloh and Jerusalem will be empty and lifeless?
Jeremiah has a lot of nerve. To speak against Jerusalem and the temple—God’s holy place on earth—is tantamount to blasphemy, and blasphemers deserve death.
At this point, a large mob of people gathered around Jeremiah in the Eternal’s temple.
10 When some officials of Judah heard what was happening, they left the palace and hurried to take their seats at the entryway of the new gate leading to the Eternal’s temple. 11 The priests and so-called prophets brought charges against Jeremiah to these officials as the crowd looked on.
Priests and Prophets: This man should be sentenced to death! You heard with your own ears how he prophesied against our city.
Jeremiah (to the officials and the crowd): 12 The Eternal sent me to prophesy against the temple and this city—every word you heard came from Him. 13 If you stop your evil actions and obey the Eternal your God, then He will stop the impending disaster He has planned for you. 14 As for me, my fate is in your hands. Do with me what you think is right and fair. 15 But know this: if you execute me, innocent blood will be on your hands and on this city and on all who live here, because the Eternal truly did send me to speak each and every word you heard.
Paul: 22 Athenians, as I have walked your streets, I have observed your strong and diverse religious ethos. You truly are a religious people. 23 I have stopped again and again to examine carefully the religious statues and inscriptions that fill your city. On one such altar, I read this inscription: “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.” I am not here to tell you about a strange foreign deity, but about this One whom you already worship, though without full knowledge. 24 This is the God who made the universe and all it contains, the God who is the King of all heaven and all earth. It would be illogical to assume that a God of this magnitude could possibly be contained in any man-made structure, no matter how majestic. 25 Nor would it be logical to think that this God would need human beings to provide Him with food and shelter—after all, He Himself would have given to humans everything they need—life, breath, food, shelter, and so on.
This is the only universal God, the One who makes all people whatever their nationality or culture or religion.
26 This God made us in all our diversity from one original person, allowing each culture to have its own time to develop, giving each its own place to live and thrive in its distinct ways. 27 His purpose in all this was that people of every culture and religion would search for this ultimate God, grope for Him in the darkness, as it were, hoping to find Him. Yet, in truth, God is not far from any of us. 28 For you know the saying, “We live in God; we move in God; we exist in God.” And still another said, “We are indeed God’s children.” 29 Since this is true, since we are indeed offspring of God’s creative act, we shouldn’t think of the Deity as our own artifact, something made by our own hands—as if this great, universal, ultimate Creator were simply a combination of elements like gold, silver, and stone. 30 No, God has patiently tolerated this kind of ignorance in the past, but now God says it is time to rethink our lives and reject these unenlightened assumptions. 31 He has fixed a day of accountability, when the whole world will be justly evaluated by a new, higher standard: not by a statue, but by a living man. God selected this man and made Him credible to all by raising Him from the dead.
32 When they heard that last phrase about resurrection from the dead, some shook their heads and scoffed, but others were even more curious.
Others: We would like you to come and speak to us again.
33 Paul left at that point, 34 but some people followed him and came to faith, including one from Areopagus named Dionysius, a prominent woman named Damaris, and others.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.