Lectionary 10, Year C

¹⁷ After these things, the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became sick; and his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. ¹⁸ She said to Elijah, “What have I to do with you, you man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to memory, and to kill my son!” ¹⁹ He said to her, “Give me your son.” He took him out of her bosom, and carried him up into the room where he stayed, and laid him on his own bed. ²⁰ He cried to the LORD, and said, “The LORD my God, have you also brought evil on the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?” ²¹ He stretched himself on the child three times, and cried to the LORD, and said, “The LORD my God, please let this child’s soul come into him again.” ²² The LORD listened to the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived. ²³ Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the room into the house, and delivered him to his mother; and Elijah said, “Behold, your son lives.” ²⁴ The woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the LORD’s word in your mouth is truth.”

¹ I will extol you, O LORD, for you have raised me up, and have not made my foes to rejoice over me. ² The LORD my God, I cried to you, and you have healed me. ³ O LORD, you have brought up my soul from Sheol. You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. ⁴ Sing praise to the LORD, you saints of his. Give thanks to his holy name. ⁵ For his anger is but for a moment. His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may stay for the night, but joy comes in the morning. ⁶ As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.” ⁷ You, O LORD, when you favored me, made my mountain stand strong; but when you hid your face, I was troubled. ⁸ I cried to you, the LORD. I made supplication to the Lord: ⁹ “What profit is there in my destruction, if I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise you? Shall it declare your truth? ¹⁰ Hear, O LORD, and have mercy on me. O LORD, be my helper.” ¹¹ You have turned my mourning into dancing for me. You have removed my sackcloth, and clothed me with gladness, ¹² to the end that my heart may sing praise to you, and not be silent. The LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever!

¹¹ But I make known to you, brothers, concerning the Good News which was preached by me, that it is not according to man. ¹² For I didn’t receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ. ¹³ For you have heard of my way of living in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the assembly of God and ravaged it. ¹⁴ I advanced in the Jews’ religion beyond many of my own age among my countrymen, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. ¹⁵ But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through his grace ¹⁶ to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I didn’t immediately confer with flesh and blood, ¹⁷ nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia. Then I returned to Damascus. ¹⁸ Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Peter, and stayed with him fifteen days. ¹⁹ But of the other apostles I saw no one except James, the Lord’s brother. ²⁰ Now about the things which I write to you, behold, before God, I’m not lying. ²¹ Then I came to the regions of Syria and Cilicia. ²² I was still unknown by face to the assemblies of Judea which were in Christ, ²³ but they only heard: “He who once persecuted us now preaches the faith that he once tried to destroy.” ²⁴ So they glorified God in me.