Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A Prayer by David.

²² Laban was told on the third day that Jacob had fled. ²³ He took his relatives with him, and pursued him seven days’ journey. He overtook him in the mountain of Gilead. ²⁴ God came to Laban the Syrian in a dream of the night, and said to him, “Be careful that you don’t speak to Jacob either good or bad.”

²⁵ Laban caught up with Jacob. Now Jacob had pitched his tent in the mountain, and Laban with his relatives encamped in the mountain of Gilead. ²⁶ Laban said to Jacob, “What have you done, that you have deceived me, and carried away my daughters like captives of the sword? ²⁷ Why did you flee secretly, and deceive me, and didn’t tell me, that I might have sent you away with mirth and with songs, with tambourine and with harp; ²⁸ and didn’t allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters? Now have you done foolishly. ²⁹ It is in the power of my hand to hurt you, but the God of your father spoke to me last night, saying, ‘Be careful that you don’t speak to Jacob either good or bad.’ ³⁰ Now, you want to be gone, because you greatly longed for your father’s house, but why have you stolen my gods?”

³¹ Jacob answered Laban, “Because I was afraid, for I said, ‘Lest you should take your daughters from me by force.’ ³² Anyone you find your gods with shall not live. Before our relatives, discern what is yours with me, and take it.” For Jacob didn’t know that Rachel had stolen them.

³³ Laban went into Jacob’s tent, into Leah’s tent, and into the tent of the two female servants; but he didn’t find them. He went out of Leah’s tent, and entered into Rachel’s tent. ³⁴ Now Rachel had taken the teraphim, put them in the camel’s saddle, and sat on them. Laban felt around all the tent, but didn’t find them. ³⁵ She said to her father, “Don’t let my lord be angry that I can’t rise up before you; for I’m having my period.” He searched, but didn’t find the teraphim.

³⁶ Jacob was angry, and argued with Laban. Jacob answered Laban, “What is my trespass? What is my sin, that you have hotly pursued me? ³⁷ Now that you have felt around in all my stuff, what have you found of all your household stuff? Set it here before my relatives and your relatives, that they may judge between us two.

³⁸ “These twenty years I have been with you. Your ewes and your female goats have not cast their young, and I haven’t eaten the rams of your flocks. ³⁹ That which was torn of animals, I didn’t bring to you. I bore its loss. Of my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. ⁴⁰ This was my situation: in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from my eyes. ⁴¹ These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. ⁴² Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty. God has seen my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you last night.”

⁸ First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, that your faith is proclaimed throughout the whole world. ⁹ For God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the Good News of his Son, how unceasingly I make mention of you always in my prayers, ¹⁰ requesting, if by any means now at last I may be prospered by the will of God to come to you. ¹¹ For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, to the end that you may be established; ¹² that is, that I with you may be encouraged in you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine.

¹³ Now I don’t desire to have you unaware, brothers, that I often planned to come to you (and was hindered so far), that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles. ¹⁴ I am debtor both to Greeks and to foreigners, both to the wise and to the foolish. ¹⁵ So as much as is in me, I am eager to preach the Good News to you also who are in Rome.