Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

This is a song that David wrote to praise God.

An alphabet of praise^[a]

Return to the Lord

1 When Darius had been king of Persia for two years, Zechariah the prophet heard a message from the Lord.^[a] It was the eighth month of the year. Zechariah was the son of Berekiah, and Berekiah was the son of Iddo.

² This was the Lord's message:

‘I, the Lord, was very angry with your ancestors. ³ Now I, the Lord Almighty, say this to you: “If you return to me, I will return to you.” ⁴ Do not be like your ancestors. Many years ago the prophets gave them a message from me. The message was, “Stop doing those evil and wicked things.” But they did not listen to me. They did not think that my message was important. ⁵ That was a long time ago. Your ancestors have been dead for a long time. So have the prophets. ⁶ I told my prophets to speak my message and my commands. I punished your ancestors, as I warned them I would do. Then they turned back to me. They said, “The Lord Almighty has punished us for our sins, as he said he would do.” ’

The man on the red horse

⁷ On the 24th day of Shebat, the 11th month of the year, the Lord spoke to Zechariah the prophet. This was when Darius had been king for two years.

⁸ During the night I, Zechariah, had a dream from the Lord. I saw a man on a red horse. The horse was standing among some trees called myrtle trees, in the valley. And behind him were red, brown and white horses.

⁹ I asked him, ‘My lord, what are these horses?’ The angel who talked with me said, ‘I will show you what they are.’

¹⁰ The man who was standing among the trees answered, ‘The Lord has sent these horses to go to all the places on the earth.’

¹¹ And the horses spoke to the angel of the Lord who stood among the trees. They said, ‘We have gone all over the earth. All the earth is without trouble.’

¹² Then the angel of the Lord said, ‘Lord Almighty, how long will you be angry with Jerusalem? How long will you be angry with the cities of Judah? You have already been angry for 70 years.’ ¹³ And the Lord answered the angel with kind words.

¹⁴ The angel said to me, ‘Tell this to the people. This is what the Lord Almighty says: “I love Jerusalem. Jerusalem is mine. ¹⁵ I am very angry with the countries that are safe and without danger. Those countries were too cruel to my people, when I was only a little angry with Jerusalem.” ¹⁶ So this is what the Lord says: “I will return to Jerusalem to be kind to the people there. I will build my house again”, says the Lord Almighty, “and I will build the city again.” ’

¹⁷ The angel told me that I must say this: ‘The Lord Almighty says, “My towns will be rich again. I will again speak kind words to Jerusalem. I will choose Jerusalem again as my own city.” ’

The people in the crowd become very angry with Paul

²² The people listened carefully to Paul until he spoke about the Gentiles. Then they began to shout loudly, ‘Take him away! Kill him! It is not right that he should live any longer!’

²³ While they were shouting this, they were taking off their coats. They also threw dirt from the ground up into the air.^[a]

²⁴ The leader of the soldiers said to his men, ‘Take this man into our building. Then hit him with whips. We must find out what he has done. He must tell us why the Jews are shouting so loudly against him.’^[b]

²⁵ So the soldiers tied Paul's arms and they were ready to hit him. But Paul spoke to the soldiers' officer who stood near to him. He said, ‘I am a citizen of Rome. So it is not right for you to hit me like that. No judge has agreed that I have done anything wrong.’

²⁶ The officer heard what Paul said. So he went to the leader of the soldiers and he said, ‘That man is a citizen of Rome! Be careful what you do to him!’

²⁷ So the soldiers' leader went to speak to Paul. He asked him, ‘Tell me. Are you really a citizen of Rome?’

Paul answered, ‘Yes, I am.’

²⁸ The soldiers' leader said, ‘I paid a lot of money to the government so that I could become a citizen of Rome.’

Paul replied, ‘But I was already a citizen of Rome when I was born.’

²⁹ Immediately, the men who wanted to hit Paul with whips moved away from him. The leader of the soldiers was also very afraid. He had tied chains around Paul's arms and legs. He knew that he should not have done that to a citizen of Rome.^[c]

³⁰ The soldiers' leader wanted to find the reason why the Jews had said bad things against Paul. He wanted to know what was really true. So the next day, he told his soldiers to remove the chains from Paul. He sent a message to the most important priest and to all the group of Jewish leaders. He told them to meet together with him. Then he took Paul to their meeting. He made Paul stand in front of them.

Paul speaks to the meeting of Jewish leaders

23 Paul looked at the group of Jewish leaders and he said to them, ‘My Jewish friends, God knows that I have nothing to be ashamed about today. I have always respected God's Laws.’ ² The most important priest, who was called Ananias, heard Paul's words. He said to the men who were near Paul, ‘Hit that man on his mouth!’ ³ Paul said to him, ‘God will certainly hit you! You are a hypocrite!^[d] You are sitting there and you are judging me. You are asking if I obey the Law of God. But you yourself do not obey the Law! You should not have said, “Hit that man!” ’

⁴ The men who were standing near Paul said to him, ‘You must not say bad things against our most important priest!’

⁵ Paul replied, ‘My brothers, I did not know that this man is the most important priest.^[e] Our Jewish law says, “Do not say bad things against the man who rules your people.” So I should not have said anything bad against him.’

⁶ Then Paul saw that there were some Sadducees and also some Pharisees in the meeting. So he shouted out to the whole group of Jewish leaders, ‘My brothers, I am a Pharisee! My father was also a Pharisee. I believe that dead people will certainly rise and they will live again. That is the reason why you are judging me today.’

⁷ As soon as Paul said that, the Pharisees and Sadducees began to argue with each other. People in the group thought different things about Paul. ⁸ (The Sadducees do not believe that dead people will live again. They do not believe that there are angels or spirits. But the Pharisees believe in all these things.)

⁹ The Sadducees and the Pharisees began to shout louder and louder against each other. There were some teachers of God's Law who were in the group of Pharisees. They stood up in the meeting and they said, ‘We do not believe that this man has done anything wrong. What he says may be true. A spirit or an angel may have spoken to him.’

¹⁰ The two groups argued more and more strongly. The leader of the soldiers thought that the people there might hurt Paul badly. So he said to his soldiers, ‘Go down into the group and take Paul away from them. Take him back with you into our strong building.’

¹¹ The next night, the Lord Jesus came and he stood near Paul. He said to Paul, ‘Do not be afraid! You have told people here in Jerusalem about me. You must also do the same thing in Rome.’