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Psalm 37

1  Fret not because of evildoers; ♦︎
   be not jealous of those who do wrong.
2  For they shall soon wither like grass ♦︎
   and like the green herb fade away.
3  Trust in the Lord and be doing good; ♦︎
   dwell in the land and be nourished with truth.
4  Let your delight be in the Lord ♦︎
   and he will give you your heart’s desire.
5  Commit your way to the Lord and put your trust in him, ♦︎
   and he will bring it to pass.
6  He will make your righteousness as clear as the light ♦︎
   and your just dealing as the noonday.
7  Be still before the Lord and wait for him; ♦︎
   do not fret over those that prosper
      as they follow their evil schemes.
8  Refrain from anger and abandon wrath; ♦︎
   do not fret, lest you be moved to do evil.
9  For evildoers shall be cut off, ♦︎
   but those who wait upon the Lord shall possess the land.
10  Yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more; ♦︎
   you will search for their place and find them gone.
11  But the lowly shall possess the land ♦︎
   and shall delight in abundance of peace.
12  The wicked plot against the righteous ♦︎
   and gnash at them with their teeth.
13  The Lord shall laugh at the wicked, ♦︎
   for he sees that their day is coming.
14  The wicked draw their sword and bend their bow
      to strike down the poor and needy, ♦︎
   to slaughter those who walk in truth.
15  Their sword shall go through their own heart ♦︎
   and their bows shall be broken.
16  The little that the righteous have ♦︎
   is better than great riches of the wicked.
17  For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, ♦︎
   but the Lord upholds the righteous.

Jonah

Jonah Tries to Run Away from God

1Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, ²‘Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.’ ³But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

4 But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up. ⁵Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold of the ship and had lain down, and was fast asleep. ⁶The captain came and said to him, ‘What are you doing sound asleep? Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.’

7 The sailors^* said to one another, ‘Come, let us cast lots, so that we may know on whose account this calamity has come upon us.’ So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. ⁸Then they said to him, ‘Tell us why this calamity has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?’ ⁹‘I am a Hebrew,’ he replied. ‘I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.’ ¹⁰Then the men were even more afraid, and said to him, ‘What is this that you have done!’ For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them so.

11 Then they said to him, ‘What shall we do to you, that the sea may quieten down for us?’ For the sea was growing more and more tempestuous. ¹²He said to them, ‘Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quieten down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you.’ ¹³Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them. ¹⁴Then they cried out to the Lord, ‘Please, O Lord, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life. Do not make us guilty of innocent blood; for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.’ ¹⁵So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging. ¹⁶Then the men feared the Lord even more, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

17 ^*But the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights.

Paul Appeals to Agrippa to Believe

24 While he was making this defence, Festus exclaimed, ‘You are out of your mind, Paul! Too much learning is driving you insane!’ ²⁵But Paul said, ‘I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking the sober truth. ²⁶Indeed the king knows about these things, and to him I speak freely; for I am certain that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this was not done in a corner. ²⁷King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.’ ²⁸Agrippa said to Paul, ‘Are you so quickly persuading me to become a Christian?’^{* 29}Paul replied, ‘Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that not only you but also all who are listening to me today might become such as I am—except for these chains.’

30 Then the king got up, and with him the governor and Bernice and those who had been seated with them; ³¹and as they were leaving, they said to one another, ‘This man is doing nothing to deserve death or imprisonment.’ ³²Agrippa said to Festus, ‘This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to the emperor.’

Paul Sails for Rome

27When it was decided that we were to sail for Italy, they transferred Paul and some other prisoners to a centurion of the Augustan Cohort, named Julius. ²Embarking on a ship of Adramyttium that was about to set sail to the ports along the coast of Asia, we put to sea, accompanied by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica. ³The next day we put in at Sidon; and Julius treated Paul kindly, and allowed him to go to his friends to be cared for. ⁴Putting out to sea from there, we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were against us. ⁵After we had sailed across the sea that is off Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra in Lycia. ⁶There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship bound for Italy and put us on board. ⁷We sailed slowly for a number of days and arrived with difficulty off Cnidus, and as the wind was against us, we sailed under the lee of Crete off Salmone. ⁸Sailing past it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near the city of Lasea.