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Psalm 86

1  Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me, ♦︎
   for I am poor and in misery.
2  Preserve my soul, for I am faithful; ♦︎
   save your servant, for I put my trust in you.
3  Be merciful to me, O Lord, for you are my God; ♦︎
   I call upon you all the day long.
4  Gladden the soul of your servant, ♦︎
   for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
5  For you, Lord, are good and forgiving, ♦︎
   abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.
6  Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer ♦︎
   and listen to the voice of my supplication.
7  In the day of my distress I will call upon you, ♦︎
   for you will answer me.
8  Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord, ♦︎
   nor any works like yours.
9  All nations you have made shall come and worship you, O Lord, ♦︎
   and shall glorify your name.
10  For you are great and do wonderful things; ♦︎
   you alone are God.

Jacob Returns to Bethel

35God said to Jacob, ‘Arise, go up to Bethel, and settle there. Make an altar there to the God who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.’ ²So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, ‘Put away the foreign gods that are among you, and purify yourselves, and change your clothes; ³then come, let us go up to Bethel, that I may make an altar there to the God who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.’ ⁴So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods that they had, and the rings that were in their ears; and Jacob hid them under the oak that was near Shechem.

The Apostles Are Persecuted

17 Then the high priest took action; he and all who were with him (that is, the sect of the Sadducees), being filled with jealousy, ¹⁸arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison. ¹⁹But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors, brought them out, and said, ²⁰‘Go, stand in the temple and tell the people the whole message about this life.’ ²¹When they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and went on with their teaching.

When the high priest and those with him arrived, they called together the council and the whole body of the elders of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought. ²²But when the temple police went there, they did not find them in the prison; so they returned and reported, ²³‘We found the prison securely locked and the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them, we found no one inside.’ ²⁴Now when the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these words, they were perplexed about them, wondering what might be going on. ²⁵Then someone arrived and announced, ‘Look, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people!’ ²⁶Then the captain went with the temple police and brought them, but without violence, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people.