1 And a famine occurred, during the days of David, for three years continuously. And David consulted the oracle of the Lord. And the Lord said: “This is because of Saul, and his house of bloodshed. For he killed the Gibeonites.”
2 Therefore, the king, calling for the Gibeonites, spoke to them. Now the Gibeonites were not of the sons of Israel, but were the remnant of the Amorites. And the sons of Israel had sworn an oath to them, but Saul wished to strike them in zeal, as if on behalf of the sons of Israel and Judah.
3 Therefore, David said to the Gibeonites: “What shall I do for you? And what shall be your satisfaction, so that you may bless the inheritance of the Lord?”
4 And the Gibeonites said to him: “There is no quarrel for us over silver or gold, but against Saul and against his house. And we do not desire that any man of Israel be put to death.” The king said to them, “Then what do you wish that I should do for you?”
5 And they said to the king: “The man who unjustly afflicted and oppressed us, we ought to destroy in such manner that not even one of his stock may be left behind in all the parts of Israel.
6 Let seven men from his sons be given to us, so that we may crucify them to the Lord in Gibeon of Saul, formerly the chosen place of the Lord.” And the king said, “I will give them.”
7 But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, because of the oath of the Lord which had been made between David and Jonathan, the son of Saul.
8 And so the king took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Michal, the daughter of Saul, whom she conceived of Adriel, the son of Barzillai, who was from Meholath,
9 and he gave them into the hands of the Gibeonites. And they crucified them on a hill in the sight of the Lord. And these seven fell together in the first days of the harvest, when the barley is beginning to be reaped.
10 Then Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, taking a haircloth, spread it under herself on a rock, from the beginning of the harvest until water dropped from heaven upon them. And she did not permit the birds to tear them by day, nor the beasts by night.
11 And it was reported to David what Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done.
12 And David went and took the bones of Saul, and the bones of his son Jonathan, from the men of Jabesh Gilead, who had stolen them from the street of Bethshan, where the Philistines had suspended them after they had slain Saul at Gilboa.
13 And he brought the bones of Saul, and the bones of his son Jonathan, from there. And they collected the bones of those who had been crucified.
14 And they buried them with the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan, in the land of Benjamin, to the side of the sepulcher of his father Kish. And they did all that the king had instructed. And after these things, God showed favor again to the land.
15 Then the Philistines again undertook a battle against Israel. And David descended, and his servants with him, and they fought against the Philistines. But when David grew faint,
16 Ishbibenob, who was of the ancestry of Arapha, the iron of whose spear weighed three hundred ounces, who had been girded with a new sword, strove to strike down David.
17 And Abishai, the son of Zeruiah, defended him, and striking the Philistine, he killed him. Then David’s men swore an oath to him, saying, “You shall no longer go out to war with us, lest you extinguish the lamp of Israel.”
18 Also, a second war occurred in Gob against the Philistines. Then Sibbecai from Hushah struck down Saph, from the stock of Arapha, of the ancestry of the giants.
19 Then there was a third war in Gob against the Philistines, in which Adeodatus, a son of the forest, a weaver from Bethlehem, struck down Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like the beam used by a cloth maker.
20 A fourth battle was in Gath. In that place, there was a lofty man, who had six digits on each hand and each foot, that is, twenty-four in all, and he was from the origins of Arapha.
21 And he blasphemed Israel. So Jonathan, the son of Shimei, the brother of David, struck him down.
22 These four men were born of Arapha in Gath, and they fell by the hand of David and his servants.
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1 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying:
2 Son of man, two women were daughters of one mother,
3 and they fornicated in Egypt; they committed fornication in their youth. In that place, their breasts were conquered; the breasts of their adolescence were subdued.
4 Now their names were Oholah, the elder, and Oholibah, her younger sister. And I held them, and they bore sons and daughters. As for their names: Oholah is Samaria, and Oholibah is Jerusalem.
5 And then, Oholah committed fornication against me, and she acted madly with her lovers, with the Assyrians who approached her,
6 who were clothed with hyacinth: rulers and magistrates, passionate youths and all of the horsemen, mounted on horses.
7 And she distributed her fornications to those chosen men, all of them sons of the Assyrians. And she defiled herself with the uncleanness of all those whom she madly desired.
8 Moreover, she also did not abandon her fornications, which she had done in Egypt. For they also slept with her in her youth, and they bruised the breasts of her virginity, and they poured out their fornication upon her.
9 Because of this, I have delivered her into the hands of her lovers, into the hands of the sons of the Assur, whom she has lustfully desired.
10 They uncovered her shame; they took away her sons and daughters; and they slew her with the sword. And they became infamous women. And they carried out judgments in her.
11 And when her sister, Oholibah, had seen this, she was even more mad with lust than the other. And her fornication was beyond the fornication of her sister.
12 She shamelessly offered herself to the sons of the Assyrians, to the rulers and magistrates who brought themselves to her clothed with colorful garments, to the horsemen who were carried by horses, and to the youths, all of them exceptional in appearance.
13 And I saw that she had been defiled, and that they both took the same path.
14 And she increased her fornications. And when she had seen men depicted on the wall, the images of the Chaldeans, expressed in colors,
15 with belts wrapped around the waist, and with dyed headdresses on their heads, having seen the appearance of all the rulers, the likenesses of the sons of Babylon and of the land of the Chaldeans in which they were born,
16 she became mad for them with the desire of her eyes, and she sent messengers to them in Chaldea.
17 And when the sons of Babylon had gone to her, to the bed of breasts, they defiled her with their fornications, and she was polluted by them, and her soul was gorged by them.
18 Also, her fornications were uncovered, and her shame was revealed. And my soul withdrew from her, as my soul had withdrawn from her sister.
19 For she multiplied her fornications, remembering the days of her youth, in which she fornicated in the land of Egypt.
20 And she was mad with lust after lying with them, whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys, and whose flow is like the flow of horses.
21 And you have revisited the crimes of your youth, when your breasts were conquered in Egypt, and the breasts of your adolescence were subdued.
22 Because of this, Oholibah, thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will raise up against you all of your lovers, with whom your soul has been gorged. And I will gather them together against you all around:
5 And he set up a testimony in Jacob: and made a law in Israel. How great things he commanded our fathers, that they should make the same known to their children:
6 That another generation might know them. The children that should be born and should rise up, and declare them to their children.
7 That they may put their hope in God and may not forget the works of God: and may seek his commandments.
8 That they may not become like their fathers, a perverse and exasperating generation. A generation that set not their heart aright: and whose spirit was not faithful to God.
9 The sons of Ephraim who bend and shoot with the bow: they have turned back in the day of battle.
10 They kept not the covenant of God: and in his law they would not walk.
11 And they forgot his benefits, and his wonders that he had shewn them.
1 Now Peter and John went up to the temple at the ninth hour of prayer.
2 And a certain man, who was lame from his mother’s womb, was being carried in. They would lay him every day at the gate of the temple, which is called the Beautiful, so that he might request alms from those entering into the temple.
3 And this man, when he had seen Peter and John beginning to enter the temple, was begging, so that he might receive alms.
4 Then Peter and John, gazing at him, said, “Look at us.”
5 And he looked intently at them, hoping that he might receive something from them.
6 But Peter said: “Silver and gold is not mine. But what I have, I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, rise up and walk.”
7 And taking him by the right hand, he lifted him up. And immediately his legs and feet were strengthened.
8 And leaping up, he stood and walked around. And he entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God.
9 And all the people saw him walking and praising God.
10 And they recognized him, that he was the same one who was sitting for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple. And they were filled with awe and amazement at what had happened to him.
11 Then, as he held on to Peter and John, all the people ran to them at the portico, which is called Solomon’s, in astonishment.
12 But Peter, seeing this, responded to the people: “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this? Or why do you stare at us, as if it were by our own strength or power that we caused this man to walk?
13 The God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his Son Jesus, whom you, indeed, handed over and denied before the face of Pilate, when he was giving judgment to release him.
14 Then you denied the Holy and Just One, and petitioned for a murderous man to be given to you.
15 Truly, it was the Author of Life whom you put to death, whom God raised from the dead, to whom we are witnesses.
16 And by faith in his name, this man, whom you have seen and known, has confirmed his name. And faith through him has given this man complete health in the sight of you all.
17 And now, brothers, I know that you did this through ignorance, just as your leaders also did.
18 But in this way God has fulfilled the things that he announced beforehand through the mouth of all the Prophets: that his Christ would suffer.
19 Therefore, repent and be converted, so that your sins may be wiped away.
20 And then, when the time of consolation will have arrived from the presence of the Lord, he will send the One who was foretold to you, Jesus Christ,
21 whom heaven certainly must take up, until the time of the restoration of all things, which God has spoken of by the mouth of his holy prophets, from ages past.
22 Indeed, Moses said: ‘For the Lord your God shall raise up a Prophet for you from your brothers, one like me; the same shall you listen to according to everything whatsoever that he shall speak to you.
23 And this shall be: every soul who will not listen to that Prophet shall be exterminated from the people.’
24 And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and thereafter, have announced these days.
25 You are sons of the prophets and of the testament which God has appointed for our fathers, saying to Abraham: ‘And by your offspring all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’
26 God raised up his Son and sent him first to you, to bless you, so that each one may turn himself away from his wickedness.”
