Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 122

A pilgrimage song. Of David.

7 When the king and Haman came in for the banquet with Queen Esther, ² the king said to her, “This is the second day we’ve met for wine. What is your wish, Queen Esther? I’ll give it to you. And what do you want? I’ll do anything—even give you half the kingdom.”

³ Queen Esther answered, “If I please the king, and if the king wishes, give me my life—that’s my wish—and the lives of my people too. That’s my desire. ⁴ We have been sold—I and my people—to be wiped out, killed, and destroyed. If we simply had been sold as male and female slaves, I would have said nothing. But no enemy can compensate the king for this kind of damage.”

⁵ King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, “Who is this person, and where is he? Who would dare do such a thing?”

⁶ Esther replied, “A man who hates, an enemy—this wicked Haman!” Haman was overcome with terror in the presence of the king and queen. ⁷ Furious, the king got up and left the banquet for the palace garden. But Haman stood up to beg Queen Esther for his life. He saw clearly that the king’s mood meant a bad end for him.

⁸ The king returned from the palace garden to the banquet room just as Haman was kneeling on the couch where Esther was reclining. “Will you even molest the queen while I am in the house?” the king said. The words had barely left the king’s mouth before covering Haman’s face with dread.^[a]

⁹ Harbona, one of the eunuchs serving the king, said, “Sir, look! There’s the stake that Haman made for Mordecai, the man who spoke up and did something good for the king. It’s standing at Haman’s house—seventy-five feet high.”

“Impale him on it!” the king ordered. ¹⁰ So they impaled Haman on the very pole that he had set up for Mordecai, and the king’s anger went away.

Christ appears to John

⁹ I, John, your brother who shares with you in the hardship, kingdom, and endurance that we have in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and my witness about Jesus. ¹⁰ I was in a Spirit-inspired trance on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice that sounded like a trumpet. ¹¹ It said, “Write down on a scroll whatever you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”

¹² I turned to see who was speaking to me, and when I turned, I saw seven oil lamps burning on top of seven gold stands. ¹³ In the middle of the lampstands I saw someone who looked like the Human One.^[a] He wore a robe that stretched down to his feet, and he had a gold sash around his chest. ¹⁴ His head and hair were white as white wool—like snow—and his eyes were like a fiery flame. ¹⁵ His feet were like fine brass that has been purified in a furnace, and his voice sounded like rushing water. ¹⁶ He held seven stars in his right hand, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword. His appearance was like the sun shining with all its power.

¹⁷ When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. But he put his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m the first and the last, ¹⁸ and the living one. I was dead, but look! Now I’m alive forever and always. I have the keys of Death and the Grave. ¹⁹ So write down what you have seen, both the scene now before you and the things that are about to unfold after this. ²⁰ As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven gold lampstands, here is what they mean: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.