Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 37^[a]

Of David.

Judah appeals for Benjamin

¹⁸ Judah approached him and said, “Please, my master, allow your servant to say something to my master without getting angry with your servant since you are like Pharaoh himself. ¹⁹ My master asked his servants, ‘Do you have a father or brother?’ ²⁰ And we said to my master, ‘Yes, we have an elderly father and a young brother, born when he was old. His brother is dead and he’s his mother’s only child. But his father loves him.’ ²¹ You told your servants, ‘Bring him down to me so I can see him.’ ²² And we said to my master, ‘The young man can’t leave his father. If he leaves, his father will die.’ ²³ You said to your servants, ‘If your youngest brother doesn’t come down with you, you’ll never see my face again.’

²⁴ “When we went back to my father your servant, we told him what you said. ²⁵ Our father told us, ‘Go back and buy for us a little food.’ ²⁶ But we said, ‘We can’t go down. We will go down only if our youngest brother is with us. We won’t be able to gain an audience with the man without our youngest brother with us.’ ²⁷ Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife gave birth to two sons for me. ²⁸ One disappeared and I said, “He must have been torn up by a wild animal,” and I haven’t seen him since. ²⁹ And if you take this one from me too, something terrible will happen to him, and you will send me—old as I am—to my grave in despair.’ ³⁰ When I now go back to your servant my father without the young man—whose life is so bound up with his— ³¹ and when he sees that the young man isn’t with us,^[a] he will die, and your servants will have sent our father your servant—old as he is—to his grave in grief. ³² I, your servant, guaranteed the young man’s safety to my father, telling him, ‘If I don’t bring him back to you, it will be my fault forever.’ ³³ Now, please let your servant stay as your slave instead of the young man so that he can go back with his brothers. ³⁴ How can I go back to my father without the young man? I couldn’t bear to see how badly my father would be hurt.”

⁵⁷ And why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? ⁵⁸ As you are going to court with your accuser, make your best effort to reach a settlement along the way. Otherwise, your accuser may bring you before the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. ⁵⁹  I tell you, you won’t get out of there until you have paid the very last cent.”^[a]