Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
97 [a]I truly love your law.
It is my meditation throughout the day.
98 [b]Your precept has given me greater wisdom than my enemies,
for it is mine forever.
99 I am wiser than all my teachers
because I meditate on your commands.
100 I have greater insight than the elders,[c]
because I keep your commandments.
101 I point my feet away from evil paths
so that I might observe your word.
102 I refuse to ignore your judgments,
for it is you yourself who have taught me.
103 Your words are sweet to my palate,
even sweeter to my tongue than honey.[d]
104 Through your commandments I achieve wisdom;
therefore, I hate every way that is false.
Nun
Chapter 26
Jeremiah’s Arrest and Conviction.[a][b] 1 At the beginning of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, the son of Josiah, this word came from the Lord to Jeremiah: 2 Thus says the Lord: Stand in the court of the Lord’s house and speak to all the people from the towns of Judah who come to worship in the house of the Lord. Tell them everything I order you to say, without omitting a single word. 3 Perhaps they will listen and all of them will turn from their evil ways, causing me to relent in my determination to inflict disaster upon them because of their evil deeds.
4 Say to them: Thus says the Lord: If you refuse to listen to me and to live according to my law that I have set before you, 5 and if you fail to heed the words of my servants the prophets, whom I send to you time and again even though you do not listen to them, 6 then I will treat this house like Shiloh, and I will make this city an object of cursing for all the nations of the earth.
7 The priests, the prophets, and all the people heard Jeremiah speak these words in the house of the Lord. 8 But when Jeremiah had finished saying everything that the Lord had commanded him to proclaim to all the people, then the priests, the prophets, and all the people seized him and cried out, “You will be put to death for this. 9 Why have you prophesied in the Lord’s name that this house will be like Shiloh and that this city will be desolate and deserted?” And all the people crowded around Jeremiah in the house of the Lord.
10 When the high officials of Judah heard what was happening, they came up from the king’s palace to the house of the Lord and took their places there at the entry of the New Gate[c] of the house of the Lord. 11 The priests and the prophets then addressed the officials and all the people, saying, “This man deserves to be condemned to death because he has prophesied against this city all the things that you heard with your own ears.”
12 Then Jeremiah replied to all the officials and all the people, saying, “The Lord himself sent me to prophesy against this house and this city all the things you have heard. 13 Now, therefore, if you amend your ways and your actions and listen to the word of the Lord, your God, the Lord will relent in his determination to inflict the disaster that he has decreed for you. 14 As for me, I am in your hands. Do with me whatever seems right and proper to you. 15 However, you can be certain that if you put me to death, you will bring the guilt of innocent blood upon yourselves and upon this city and its inhabitants. For truly the Lord sent me to speak all these things for you to hear.”
22 Paul’s Speech at the Areopagus.[a]Then Paul stood before them in the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens, I have seen how religious you are. 23 For as I walked around, looking carefully at your shrines, I noticed among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an Unknown God.’ What, therefore, you worship as unknown, I now proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in shrines made by human hands. 25 Nor is he served by human hands as though he were in need of anything. Rather, it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and all other things. 26 From one ancestor,[b] he created all peoples to occupy the entire earth, and he decreed their appointed times and the boundaries of where they would live.
27 “He did all this so that people might seek God in the hope that by groping for him they might find him, even though indeed he is not far from any one of us. 28 For ‘In him we live and move and have our being.’[c] As even your own poets have said, ‘We are all his offspring.’
29 “Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like an image of gold or silver or stone, fashioned by human art and imagination. 30 God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, but now he commands people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world with justice by a man whom he has appointed. He has given public confirmation of this to all by raising him from the dead.”
32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed, but others said, “We should like to hear you speak further on this subject at another time.” 33 After that, Paul left them. 34 However, some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius[d] the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, as well as some others.
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