Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

The 3rd Hallelujah Psalm^[a]

Joash and the people turn away from the Lord

¹⁷ After Jehoiada died, the important officers of Judah came to the king. They bent down low in front of him to give him honour. The king listened to their advice. ¹⁸ They stopped worshipping the Lord, the God of their ancestors, in his temple. Instead, they worshipped Asherah poles and idols. So God became very angry with the people of Judah and Jerusalem, because they were guilty of these sins. ¹⁹ The Lord sent his prophets to tell the people to turn back to him. They warned the people, but the people would not listen to them.

²⁰ Then God's Spirit came to Jehoiada's son Zechariah with power. Zechariah stood in front of the people and he said, ‘This is what God says: “You are not obeying the Lord's commands. So nothing will go well for you. You have turned away from the Lord, so now he has turned away from you!” ’

²¹ The people decided to punish Zechariah. The king gave a command to punish him with death. So they threw stones at him to kill him in the yard of the Lord's temple. ²² King Joash forgot that Zechariah's father Jehoiada had been a faithful servant. He killed Jehoiada's son. Zechariah said, as he was dying, ‘I pray that the Lord sees what you have done! May he punish you because of it!’

Joash dies

²³ At the end of that year, Syria's army attacked Judah and Jerusalem, where Joash lived. They killed all the leaders of Judah's people. They took many valuable things to send to their king in Damascus. ²⁴ Syria's army was very small but the Lord gave them power over Judah's large army. He did that because Judah's people had turned away from the Lord, the God of their ancestors. Syria's army punished Joash as he deserved.

The believers choose seven men

6 At that time, more and more people became disciples of Jesus. Among the believers, some were Jews who spoke the Greek language. Others were Jews who spoke the Aramaic language. The Jews who spoke Greek had a problem with the other Jews. They said, ‘The widows in our group do not receive the right help. Each day, when you give out the food and money, our widows receive less than they should get.’^[a]

² The 12 apostles heard about the problem. They told all the believers to meet together with them. The apostles said, ‘Our work is to teach people God's message about Jesus. We do not have time to give out the food and money to people as well. ³ So, friends, please choose seven men from among you. You must know that each of them is full of the Holy Spirit. They must also be very wise. We will ask these seven men to do this work for us. ⁴ Then we will have more time to pray. We will also have more time to teach people God's message.’

⁵ The whole group of believers was happy with the apostles' words. So first they chose a man called Stephen. Stephen believed strongly in God and he was full of the Holy Spirit. The believers also chose six other men: Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nicolas. Nicolas was from Antioch. He was not born as a Jew, but he had joined the Jews later. ⁶ The group of believers put these seven men in front of the apostles. The apostles prayed for each man and they put their hands on them. They gave them authority to do this special work.

⁷ So more and more people heard the message from God. The number of people in Jerusalem who believed in Jesus grew more and more. Many of the Jewish priests also believed the message about Jesus.^[b]

⁵¹ Then Stephen said, ‘You people do not want to obey God! You do not want to listen to God's true message. You are the same as your ancestors. Like them, you always fight against what the Holy Spirit says. ⁵² Your ancestors did bad things to every prophet that God sent to them. They even killed the prophets who told them about the Righteous Man that God would send. Now you have given that Man to his enemies. You have made them kill him. ⁵³ You are the people who received God's Law. God caused his angels to give that Law to your ancestors. But you have not obeyed it.’

The Jewish leaders kill Stephen

⁵⁴ The group of Jewish leaders listened to Stephen. What he said made them very angry. They bit their teeth together because they were so angry. ⁵⁵ But the Holy Spirit filled Stephen. He looked up to heaven and he saw the bright light of God's glory. He also saw Jesus, who was standing at the right side of God. ⁵⁶ Stephen said, ‘Look! I can see into heaven itself. It is open! I can see the Son of Man and he is standing at the right side of God!’^[a]

⁵⁷ When the Jewish leaders heard this, they put their hands over their ears. Then they shouted very loudly at Stephen and they all ran towards him. ⁵⁸ They took hold of Stephen and they pulled him out of the city. They removed their coats. They gave them to a young man to keep them safe. This young man was called Saul. Then they began to throw stones at Stephen to kill him.

⁵⁹ While the men were throwing stones at him, Stephen prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, please receive my spirit as I die.’ ⁶⁰ Then he fell down on his knees. He shouted, ‘Lord, please forgive these men. Do not punish them because they are doing this to me.’ After Stephen had said this, he died.