Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
53 (0) For the leader. On machalat. A maskil of David:
2 (1) A brutish fool tells himself,
“There isn’t any God.”
Such people are depraved, all their deeds are vile,
not one of them does what is good.
3 (2) God looks out from heaven
upon the human race
to see if even one is wise,
if even one seeks God.
4 (3) Every one of them is unclean,
altogether corrupt;
not one of them does what is good,
not a single one.
5 (4) Won’t these evildoers ever learn?
They devour my people
as if they were eating bread,
and they never call on God!
6 (5) They will be gripped with terror,
even though now they are not afraid;
for God will scatter the bones
of him who is besieging you.
You are putting them to shame,
because God has rejected them.
7 (6) If only salvation for Isra’el
would come out of Tziyon!
When God restores his people’s fortunes,
what joy for Ya‘akov! what gladness for Isra’el!
4 The wife of one of the guild prophets complained to Elisha. “Your servant my husband died,” she said, “and you know that he feared Adonai. Now a creditor has come to take my two children as his slaves.” 2 Elisha asked her, “What should I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” She answered, “Your servant has nothing in the house but a flask of oil.” 3 Then he said, “Go, and borrow containers from all your neighbors, empty containers; and don’t borrow just a few! 4 Then go in; shut the door, with you and your sons inside; and pour oil into all those containers; and as they are filled, put them aside.” 5 So she left him and shut the door on herself and her sons. They brought her the containers while she poured. 6 When the containers were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another container”; but he answered, “There isn’t another container.” Then the oil stopped flowing. 7 She came and told the man of God; and he said, “Go, sell the oil, and pay your debt; then you and your sons can live on what’s left.”
10 On their return, the emissaries detailed to Yeshua what they had done. Then, taking them with him, he withdrew by himself to a town called Beit-Tzaidah. 11 But the crowds found out and followed him. Welcoming them, he went on to speak to them about the Kingdom of God and to heal those who needed to be healed.
12 The day began to draw to a close. The Twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away, so that they can go and get lodging and food in the towns and farms around here, because where we are is a remote place.” 13 But he said to them, “Give them something to eat, yourselves!” They said, “We have no more than five loaves of bread and two fish — unless we ourselves are supposed to go and buy food for all these people!” 14 (For there were about five thousand men.) He said to his talmidim, “Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” 15 They did what he told them and had them all sit down. 16 Then he took the five loaves and the two fish and, looking up toward heaven, made a b’rakhah, broke the loaves and began giving them to the talmidim to distribute to the crowd. 17 Everyone ate as much as he wanted; and they took up what was left over, twelve baskets full of broken pieces.
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.