Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

David wrote this special song for the music leader. Use the music called Mahalath.

People are wicked^[a]

Elisha helps a poor widow

4 There was a woman whose husband belonged to the group of prophets. When her husband died, she called out to Elisha for help. She said, ‘Your servant, my husband, is dead. He served the Lord faithfully. My husband was in debt to a certain man. Now that man wants to take my two children to be his slaves.’

² Elisha said to her, ‘How can I help you? Tell me, what things do you have in your house?’

She said to Elisha, ‘Please sir, I have nothing in the house. All I have is a small jar of olive oil.’

³ Then Elisha said to her, ‘Go to all your neighbours. Ask them to lend you empty jars. Make sure that you get a lot of them. ⁴ Then take the jars into your house. Go in with your sons and shut the door behind you. Pour the olive oil from your jar into all the other jars. When each jar is full, put it in a safe place.’

⁵ The widow left Elisha. She went into her house with her sons and she shut the door behind her. They brought the jars to her and she poured the oil into them. ⁶ When all the jars were full, she said to one of her sons, ‘Bring me another jar.’ But he said, ‘There are no more jars.’ Then there was no more olive oil to pour from her jar.

⁷ Then the widow went back to Elisha, the man of God. She told him what had happened. He said, ‘Go and sell the oil. Use some of the money to pay the debt to the man. Use the money that remains to buy food for you and your sons. Then you will live.’

Jesus feeds 5,000 men and their families

¹⁰ The 12 apostles that Jesus had sent out returned. They told him what they had done. Then he took them away from the crowd, so that he could be alone with them. They went to a town called Bethsaida. ¹¹ But the crowds found out about this. So they went to find Jesus. When he saw the crowds coming, he welcomed them. He taught them about the kingdom of God. Some sick people were there and he made them well again.

¹² When it was nearly evening, the 12 apostles came to Jesus. ‘There are no houses in this place,’ they said. ‘Send the crowd away now. Tell them to go to the villages and farms near here. Then they can get food to eat and they can find a place to sleep.’

¹³ Jesus said to them, ‘You should give them some food to eat.’

But the disciples said, ‘We have only five loaves of bread and two fish. Do you want us to go and buy food for all these people?’ ¹⁴ There were about 5,000 men in the crowd.

Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Tell the people that they should sit down on the ground in groups. There should be about 50 people in each group.’

¹⁵ So they did this. When the people had sat down, ¹⁶ Jesus took the five loaves of bread and the two fish. Then he looked up towards heaven and he thanked God for the food. He broke the bread into pieces. He gave the pieces of bread to the disciples, and they gave the bread to the crowd. ¹⁷ Everybody ate and they all had enough food. They were not hungry any more. Then the disciples picked up the bits of food that people had not eaten. They filled 12 baskets with all the little bits of food.^[a]