Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Security of Those Who Trust in the Lord, and Insecurity of the Wicked.

A Psalm of David.

¹⁸ Then Judah approached him and said, “Oh my lord, may your servant please speak a word in my lord’s ears, and ^[a](A)do not be angry with your servant; for ^(B)you are equal to Pharaoh. ^19 (C)My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father or a brother?’ ²⁰ And we said to my lord, ‘We have an old father and ^(D)a little boy born in our father’s old age. Now ^(E)his brother is dead, so he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him.’ ²¹ Then you said to your servants, ‘^(F)Bring him down to me so that I may set my eyes on him.’ ²² But we said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, ^[b]his father would die.’ ²³ You said to your servants, however, ‘^(G)Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you will not see my face again.’ ²⁴ So it came about when we went up to your servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. ²⁵ And ^(H)our father said, ‘Go back, buy us a little food.’ ²⁶ But we said, ‘We cannot go down. If our youngest brother is with us, then we will go down; for we cannot see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’ ²⁷ Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that ^(I)my wife bore me two sons; ²⁸ and the one left me, and ^(J)I said, “Surely he is torn to pieces,” and I have not seen him since. ²⁹ If you also take this one from ^[c]me, and harm happens to him, you will ^(K)bring my gray hair down to Sheol in ^[d]sorrow.’ ³⁰ So now, when I come to your servant, my father, and the boy is not with us—since ^[e](L)our father’s life is so attached to the boy’s life— ³¹ when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die. So your servants will ^(M)bring the gray hair of your servant, our father, down to Sheol in sorrow. ³² For your servant ^(N)accepted responsibility for the boy from my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then ^[f]my father can let me take the blame forever.’ ³³ So now, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord instead of the boy, and let the boy go up with his brothers. ³⁴ For how shall I go up to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear that I may see the evil that would ^[g]overtake my father.”

⁵⁷ “And ^(A)why do you not even judge by yourselves what is right? ⁵⁸ For ^(B)when you are going with your accuser to appear before the magistrate, on the way, make an effort to ^[a]settle with him, so that he does not drag 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 will not get out of there until you have paid up ^[b]the very last ^[c](C)lepton.”