Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Waw
41 Lord, show me your faithful love.
Save me, as you promised.
42 Then I will have an answer for those who make fun of me
for trusting what you say.
43 Let me always say what is true.
I depend on your judgment to be fair.
44 I will follow your teachings forever and ever.
45 So I will live in freedom,
because I do my best to know your instructions.
46 I will discuss your rules with kings,
and no one will embarrass me.
47 What joy your commands give me!
How I love them!
48 Not only do I love your commands, but I also honor them.
I will study your laws.
Hagar the Servant Girl
16 Sarai was Abram’s wife, but she did not have any children. She had an Egyptian slave named Hagar. 2 Sarai told Abram, “The Lord has not allowed me to have children, so sleep with my slave. Maybe she can have a son, and I will accept him as my own.” Abram did what Sarai said.
3 So after living ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai gave her Egyptian slave to Abram as a second wife. 4 Abram slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant. When Hagar realized this, she became very proud and began to feel that she was better than Sarai her owner. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “My slave girl now hates me, and I blame you for this. I gave her to you, and she became pregnant. Then she began to feel that she is better than I am. I want the Lord to judge which of us is right.”
6 But Abram said to Sarai, “She is your slave. You can do anything you want to her.” So Sarai was cruel to Hagar, and Hagar ran away.
Hagar’s Son Ishmael
7 The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring of water in the desert. The spring was by the road to Shur. 8 The angel said, “Hagar, Sarai’s slave girl, why are you here? Where are you going?”
Hagar said, “I am running away from Sarai.”
9 The angel of the Lord said to her, “Sarai is your owner. Go home to her and obey her.” 10 The angel of the Lord also said, “From you will come many people—too many people to count.”
11 Then the angel of the Lord said,
“Hagar, you are now pregnant,
and you will have a son.
You will name him Ishmael,[a]
because the Lord has heard that you were treated badly.
12 Ishmael will be wild and free
like a wild donkey.
He will be against everyone,
and everyone will be against him.
He will move from place to place
and camp near his brothers.”
13 The Lord talked to Hagar. She began to use a new name for God. She said to him, “You are ‘God Who Sees Me.’” She said this because she thought, “I see that even in this place God sees me and cares for me!” 14 So the well there was called Beer Lahai Roi.[b] It is between Kadesh and Bered.
15 Hagar gave birth to Abram’s son, and Abram named the son Ishmael.
We Are God’s Temple
14 You are not the same as those who don’t believe. So don’t join yourselves to them. Good and evil don’t belong together. Light and darkness cannot share the same room. 15 How can there be any unity between Christ and the devil[a]? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 God’s temple[b] cannot have anything to do with idols, and we are the temple of the living God. As God said,
“I will live with them
and walk with them;
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.” (A)
17 “So come away from those people
and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord.
Don’t touch anything that is not clean,
and I will accept you.” (B)
18 “I will be your father,
and you will be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord All-Powerful.” (C)
7 Dear friends, we have these promises from God. So we should make ourselves pure—free from anything that makes our body or our soul unclean. Our respect for God should make us try to be completely holy in the way we live.
Paul’s Joy
2 Open your hearts to us. We have not done wrong to anyone or caused harm to anyone. And we have not cheated anyone.
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International