Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
2 “See! God is my salvation.
I am confident and unafraid;
for Yah Adonai is my strength and my song,
and he has become my salvation!”
3 Then you will joyfully draw water
from the springs of salvation.
4 On that day you will say,
“Give thanks to Adonai! Call on his name!
Make his deeds known among the peoples,
declare how exalted is his name.
5 Sing to Adonai, for he has triumphed —
this is being made known throughout the earth.
6 Shout and sing for joy,
you who live in Tziyon;
for the Holy One of Isra’el
is with you in his greatness!”
4 Listen, you who swallow the needy
and destroy the poor of the land!
5 You say, “When will Rosh-Hodesh be over,
so we can market our grain?
and Shabbat, so we can sell wheat?”
You measure the grain in a small eifah,
but the silver in heavy shekels,
fixing the scales, so that you can cheat,
6 buying the needy for money
and the poor for a pair of shoes,
and sweeping up the refuse of the wheat to sell!”
7 Adonai swears by Ya‘akov’s pride,
“I will forget none of their deeds, ever.
8 Won’t the land tremble for this,
and everyone mourn, who lives in the land?
It will all rise, just like the Nile,
be in turmoil and subside, like the Nile in Egypt.
9 “When that time comes,” says Adonai Elohim,
“I will make the sun go down at noon
and darken the earth in broad daylight.
10 I will turn your festivals into mourning
and all your songs into wailing;
I will make you all put sackcloth around your waists
and shave your heads bald in grief.
I will make it like mourning for an only son
and its end like a bitter day.
11 “The time is coming,” says Adonai Elohim,
“when I will send famine over the land,
not a famine of bread or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of Adonai.
12 People will stagger from sea to sea
and from north to east, running back and forth,
seeking the word of Adonai;
but they will not find it.
9 There is really no need for me to write you about this offering for God’s people — 2 I know how eager you are, and I boast about you to the Macedonians. I tell them, “Achaia has been ready since last year,” and it was your zeal that stirred up most of them. 3 But now I am sending the brothers so that our boast about you in this regard will not prove hollow, so that you will be ready, as I said you would be. 4 For if some Macedonians were to come with me and find you unprepared, we would be humiliated at having been so confident — to say nothing of how you would feel. 5 So I thought it necessary to urge these brothers to go on to you ahead of me and prepare your promised gift in plenty of time; this way it will be ready when I come and will be a genuine gift, not something extracted by pressure.
6 Here’s the point: he who plants sparingly also harvests sparingly. 7 Each should give according to what he has decided in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.[a] 8 Moreover, God has the power to provide you with every gracious gift in abundance, so that always in every way you will have all you need yourselves and be able to provide abundantly for every good cause — 9 as the Tanakh says,
“He gave generously to the poor;
his tzedakah lasts forever.”[b]
10 He who provides both seed for the planter and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed and increase the harvest of your tzedakah. 11 You will be enriched in every way, so that you can be generous in everything. And through us your generosity will cause people to thank God, 12 because rendering this holy service not only provides for the needs of God’s people, but it also overflows in the many thanks people will be giving to God. 13 In offering this service you prove to these people that you glorify God by actually doing what your acknowledgement of the Good News of the Messiah requires, namely, sharing generously with them and with everyone. 14 And in their prayers for you they will feel a strong affection for you because of how gracious God has been to you. 15 Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.