Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 71

¹ In You, O Lord, do I put my trust and confidently take refuge; let me never be put to shame or confusion!

² Deliver me in Your righteousness and cause me to escape; bow down Your ear to me and save me!

³ Be to me a rock of refuge in which to dwell, and a sheltering stronghold to which I may continually resort, which You have appointed to save me, for You are my Rock and my Fortress.

⁴ Rescue me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the grasp of the unrighteous and ruthless man.

⁵ For You are my hope; O Lord God, You are my trust from my youth and the source of my confidence.

⁶ Upon You have I leaned and relied from birth; You are He Who took me from my mother’s womb and You have been my benefactor from that day. My praise is continually of You.

²⁰ To what purpose does frankincense come to Me from Sheba [in southwestern Arabia] and the sweet cane from a far country? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor are your sacrifices sweet or pleasing to Me.

²¹ Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I will lay stumbling blocks before this people. And the fathers and the sons together will stumble against them; the neighbor and his friend will perish.

²² Thus says the Lord: Behold, a people is coming from the north country, and a great nation is arousing itself from the ends of the earth.

²³ They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel (ruthless and inhuman) and have no mercy. Their voice sounds like the roaring sea; they ride on horses, every one set in array as a man for battle against you, O Daughter of Zion!

²⁴ We have heard the report of it; our hands become feeble and helpless. Anguish has taken hold of us, pangs like that of a woman in childbirth.

²⁵ Go not out into the field nor walk on the road, for the enemy is armed with the sword; terror is on every side.

²⁶ O daughter of my people [says Jeremiah], gird yourself with sackcloth and wallow in ashes; make mourning as for an only son, a most bitter lamentation, for the destroyer will suddenly come upon us [on prophet and people].

²⁷ I [says the Lord] have set you [Jeremiah] as an assayer and a prover of ore among My people, that you may know and try their doings and be like a watchtower.

²⁸ They are all the worst [kind] of rebels and utter and total revolters against God, going about publishing slander. They are [not gold and silver ore, but] bronze and iron; they are all corrupters.

²⁹ The bellows blow fiercely, the lead is consumed by the fire; in vain do they continue refining, for the wicked [the dross] are not removed.

³⁰ Men will call them reprobate and rejected silver [only dross, without good metal], because the Lord has rejected them.

17 Now after [Paul and Silas] had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.

² And Paul entered, as he usually did, and for three Sabbaths he reasoned and argued with them from the Scriptures,

³ Explaining [them] and [quoting passages] setting forth and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, This Jesus, Whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ (the Messiah).

⁴ And some of them [accordingly] were induced to believe and associated themselves with Paul and Silas, as did a great number of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.

⁵ But the unbelieving Jews were aroused to jealousy, and, getting hold of some wicked men (ruffians and rascals) and loungers in the marketplace, they gathered together a mob, set the town in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring [Paul and Silas] out to the people.

⁶ But when they failed to find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brethren before the city authorities, crying, These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also,

⁷ And Jason has received them to his house and privately protected them! And they are all ignoring and acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, [actually] asserting that there is another king, one Jesus!

⁸ And both the crowd and the city authorities, on hearing this, were irritated (stirred up and troubled).

⁹ And when they had taken security [bail] from Jason and the others, they let them go.