Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A Hymn of Praise^[a]

The Lord Calls His People to Return to Him

1 ^(A)In the eighth month of the second year that Darius was emperor of Persia, the Lord gave this message to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah and grandson of Iddo. ² The Lord Almighty told Zechariah to say to the people, “I, the Lord, was very angry with your ancestors, ³ but now I say to you, ‘Return to me, and I will return to you. ⁴ Do not be like your ancestors. Long ago the prophets gave them my message, telling them not to live evil, sinful lives any longer. But they would not listen to me or obey me. ⁵ Your ancestors and those prophets are no longer alive. ⁶ Through my servants the prophets I gave your ancestors commands and warnings, but they disregarded them and suffered the consequences. Then they repented and acknowledged that I, the Lord Almighty, had punished them as they deserved and as I had determined to do.’”

The Prophet's Vision of the Horses

⁷ In the second year that Darius was emperor, on the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month (the month of Shebat), the Lord gave me a message in a vision at night. ^8 (B)I saw someone riding a red horse. He had stopped among some myrtle trees in a valley, and behind him were other horses—red, dappled, and white. ⁹ I asked him, “Sir, what do these horses mean?”

He answered, “I will show you what they mean. ¹⁰ The Lord sent them to go and inspect the earth.”

¹¹ They reported to the angel: “We have been all over the world and have found that the whole world lies helpless and subdued.”

¹² Then the angel said, “Almighty Lord, you have been angry with Jerusalem and the cities of Judah for seventy years now. How much longer will it be before you show them mercy?”

¹³ The Lord answered the angel with comforting words, ¹⁴ and the angel told me to proclaim what the Lord Almighty had said: “I have a deep love and concern for Jerusalem, my holy city, ¹⁵ and I am very angry with the nations that enjoy quiet and peace. For while I was holding back my anger against my people, those nations made the sufferings of my people worse. ¹⁶ So I have come back to Jerusalem to show mercy to the city. My Temple will be restored, and the city will be rebuilt.”

¹⁷ The angel also told me to proclaim: “The Lord Almighty says that his cities will be prosperous again and that he will once again help Jerusalem and claim the city as his own.”

²² The people listened to Paul until he said this; but then they started shouting at the top of their voices, “Away with him! Kill him! He's not fit to live!” ²³ They were screaming, waving their clothes, and throwing dust up in the air. ²⁴ The Roman commander ordered his men to take Paul into the fort, and he told them to whip him in order to find out why the Jews were screaming like this against him. ²⁵ But when they had tied him up to be whipped, Paul said to the officer standing there, “Is it lawful for you to whip a Roman citizen who hasn't even been tried for any crime?”

²⁶ When the officer heard this, he went to the commander and asked him, “What are you doing? That man is a Roman citizen!”

²⁷ So the commander went to Paul and asked him, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?”

“Yes,” answered Paul.

²⁸ The commander said, “I became one by paying a large amount of money.”

“But I am one by birth,” Paul answered.

²⁹ At once the men who were going to question Paul drew back from him; and the commander was frightened when he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had put him in chains.

Paul before the Council

³⁰ The commander wanted to find out for sure what the Jews were accusing Paul of; so the next day he had Paul's chains taken off and ordered the chief priests and the whole Council to meet. Then he took Paul and made him stand before them.

23 Paul looked straight at the Council and said, “My fellow Israelites! My conscience is perfectly clear about the way in which I have lived before God to this very day.” ² The High Priest Ananias ordered those who were standing close to Paul to strike him on the mouth. ^3 (A)Paul said to him, “God will certainly strike you—you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the Law, yet you break the Law by ordering them to strike me!”

⁴ The men close to Paul said to him, “You are insulting God's High Priest!”

^5 (B)Paul answered, “My fellow Israelites, I did not know that he was the High Priest. The scripture says, ‘You must not speak evil of the ruler of your people.’”

^6 (C)When Paul saw that some of the group were Sadducees and the others were Pharisees, he called out in the Council, “Fellow Israelites! I am a Pharisee, the son of Pharisees. I am on trial here because of the hope I have that the dead will rise to life!”

⁷ As soon as he said this, the Pharisees and Sadducees started to quarrel, and the group was divided. (^8 (D)For the Sadducees say that people will not rise from death and that there are no angels or spirits; but the Pharisees believe in all three.) ⁹ The shouting became louder, and some of the teachers of the Law who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and protested strongly: “We cannot find a thing wrong with this man! Perhaps a spirit or an angel really did speak to him!”

¹⁰ The argument became so violent that the commander was afraid that Paul would be torn to pieces. So he ordered his soldiers to go down into the group, get Paul away from them, and take him into the fort.

¹¹ That night the Lord stood by Paul and said, “Don't be afraid! You have given your witness for me here in Jerusalem, and you must also do the same in Rome.”