Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Prayer for Rescue from the Treacherous.

A Song of ^[a]Ascents.

Cyrus’ Proclamation

1 ^(A)Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he ^(B)sent a proclamation throughout his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying:

² “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: ‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and ^(C)He has appointed me to rebuild for Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. ³ Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! ^[a]Go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel; ^(D)He is the God who is in Jerusalem. ⁴ And every survivor, at whatever place he may ^[b]live, the people of ^[c]that place are to support him with silver and gold, with equipment and cattle, together with a ^[d]voluntary offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.’”

Holy Vessels Restored

⁵ Then the heads of fathers’ households of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites rose up, ^(E)everyone whose spirit God had stirred to go up to rebuild the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem. ⁶ And all of those around them ^[e](F)encouraged them with articles of silver, with gold, with equipment, cattle, and with valuables, aside from everything that was given as a ^[f]voluntary offering. ^7 (G)Also King Cyrus brought out the articles of the house of the Lord, ^(H)which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and put in the house of his gods; ⁸ and Cyrus, king of Persia, had them brought out by the hand of Mithredath the treasurer, and he counted them out to ^(I)Sheshbazzar, the leader of Judah. ⁹ Now this was their number: thirty ^(J)gold dishes, a thousand silver dishes, twenty nine ^[g]duplicates; ¹⁰ thirty gold bowls, 410 silver bowls of a second kind, and a thousand other articles. ¹¹ All the articles of gold and silver totaled 5,400. Sheshbazzar brought them all up with the exiles who went up from Babylon to Jerusalem.

Paul’s Integrity

¹² For our ^[a]proud confidence is this: the testimony of ^(A)our conscience, that in holiness and ^(B)godly sincerity, ^(C)not in fleshly wisdom but in the grace of God, we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially toward you. ¹³ For we write nothing else to you than what you read and understand, and I hope you will understand ^(D)until the end; ¹⁴ just as you also partially did understand us, that we are your reason to be proud as you also are ours, on ^(E)the day of our Lord Jesus.

¹⁵ In this confidence I intended at first to ^(F)come to you, so that you might ^[b]twice receive a ^[c](G)blessing; ^16 [d]that is, to ^(H)pass ^[e]your way into ^(I)Macedonia, and again from Macedonia to come to you, and by you to be ^(J)helped on my journey to Judea. ¹⁷ Therefore, I was not vacillating when I intended to do this, was I? Or what I decide, do I decide ^(K)according to the flesh, so that with me there will be ^[f]yes, yes and no, no at the same time? ¹⁸ But as ^(L)God is faithful, ^(M)our word to you is not yes and no. ¹⁹ For ^(N)the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among you by us—by me and ^(O)Silvanus and ^(P)Timothy—was not yes and no, but has been yes ^(Q)in Him.