Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
God Knows Everything
For the director of music. A psalm of David.
139 Lord, you have examined me
and know all about me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I get up.
You know my thoughts before I think them.
3 You know where I go and where I lie down.
You know everything I do.
4 Lord, even before I say a word,
you already know it.
5 You are all around me—in front and in back—
and have put your hand on me.
6 Your knowledge is amazing to me;
it is more than I can understand.
13 You made my whole being;
you formed me in my mother’s body.
14 I praise you because you made me in an amazing and wonderful way.
What you have done is wonderful.
I know this very well.
15 You saw my bones being formed
as I took shape in my mother’s body.
When I was put together there,
16 you saw my body as it was formed.
All the days planned for me
were written in your book
before I was one day old.
17 God, your thoughts are precious to me.
They are so many!
18 If I could count them,
they would be more than all the grains of sand.
When I wake up,
I am still with you.
19 Early the next morning Elkanah’s family got up and worshiped the Lord. Then they went back home to Ramah. Elkanah had sexual relations with his wife Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. 20 So Hannah became pregnant, and in time she gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel,[a] saying, “His name is Samuel because I asked the Lord for him.”
Hannah Gives Samuel to God
21 Every year Elkanah went with his whole family to Shiloh to offer sacrifices and to keep the promise he had made to God. 22 But one time Hannah did not go with him. She told him, “When the boy is old enough to eat solid food, I will take him to Shiloh. Then I will give him to the Lord, and he will always live there.”
23 Elkanah, Hannah’s husband, said to her, “Do what you think is best. You may stay home until the boy is old enough to eat. May the Lord do what you have said.” So Hannah stayed at home to nurse her son until he was old enough to eat.
24 When Samuel was old enough to eat, Hannah took him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh, along with a three-year-old bull, one-half bushel of flour, and a leather bag filled with wine. 25 After they had killed the bull for the sacrifice, Hannah brought Samuel to Eli. 26 She said to Eli, “As surely as you live, sir, I am the same woman who stood near you praying to the Lord. 27 I prayed for this child, and the Lord answered my prayer and gave him to me.
God’s Love in Christ Jesus
31 So what should we say about this? If God is for us, no one can defeat us. 32 He did not spare his own Son but gave him for us all. So with Jesus, God will surely give us all things. 33 Who can accuse the people God has chosen? No one, because God is the One who makes them right. 34 Who can say God’s people are guilty? No one, because Christ Jesus died, but he was also raised from the dead, and now he is on God’s right side, appealing to God for us. 35 Can anything separate us from the love Christ has for us? Can troubles or problems or sufferings or hunger or nakedness or danger or violent death? 36 As it is written in the Scriptures:
“For you we are in danger of death all the time.
People think we are worth no more than sheep to be killed.” Psalm 44:22
37 But in all these things we are completely victorious through God who showed his love for us. 38 Yes, I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor ruling spirits, nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, 39 nothing above us, nothing below us, nor anything else in the whole world will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.