Genesis 31, Mark 2, Esther 7, Romans 2

Genesis 31,

Jacob heard that Laban's sons were saying, "Jacob has taken everything our father owned and has gained all this wealth from what belonged to our father."
And Jacob noticed that Laban's attitude toward him was not what it had been.
Then the LORD said to Jacob, "Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you."
So Jacob sent word to Rachel and Leah to come out to the fields where his flocks were.
He said to them, "I see that your father's attitude toward me is not what it was before, but the God of my father has been with me.
  
  You know that I've worked for your father with all my strength,
yet your father has cheated me by changing my wages ten times. However, God has not allowed him to harm me.
If he said, 'The speckled ones will be your wages,' then all the flocks gave birth to speckled young; and if he said, 'The streaked ones will be your wages,' then all the flocks bore streaked young.
So God has taken away your father's livestock and has given them to me.
"In breeding season I once had a dream in which I looked up and saw that the male goats mating with the flock were streaked, speckled or spotted.
  
  The angel of God said to me in the dream, 'Jacob.' I answered, 'Here I am.'
And he said, 'Look up and see that all the male goats mating with the flock are streaked, speckled or spotted, for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you.
I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land.' "
Then Rachel and Leah replied, "Do we still have any share in the inheritance of our father's estate?
Does he not regard us as foreigners? Not only has he sold us, but he has used up what was paid for us.
  
  Surely all the wealth that God took away from our father belongs to us and our children. So do whatever God has told you."
Then Jacob put his children and his wives on camels,
and he drove all his livestock ahead of him, along with all the goods he had accumulated in Paddan Aram, to go to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan.
When Laban had gone to shear his sheep, Rachel stole her father's household gods.
Moreover, Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him he was running away.
  
  So he fled with all he had, and crossing the River, he headed for the hill country of Gilead.
On the third day Laban was told that Jacob had fled.
Taking his relatives with him, he pursued Jacob for seven days and caught up with him in the hill country of Gilead.
Then God came to Laban the Aramean in a dream at night and said to him, "Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad."
Jacob had pitched his tent in the hill country of Gilead when Laban overtook him, and Laban and his relatives camped there too.
  
  Then Laban said to Jacob, "What have you done? You've deceived me, and you've carried off my daughters like captives in war.
Why did you run off secretly and deceive me? Why didn't you tell me, so I could send you away with joy and singing to the music of tambourines and harps?
You didn't even let me kiss my grandchildren and my daughters good-by. You have done a foolish thing.
I have the power to harm you; but last night the God of your father said to me, 'Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad.'
Now you have gone off because you longed to return to your father's house. But why did you steal my gods?"
  
  Jacob answered Laban, "I was afraid, because I thought you would take your daughters away from me by force.
But if you find anyone who has your gods, he shall not live. In the presence of our relatives, see for yourself whether there is anything of yours here with me; and if so, take it." Now Jacob did not know that Rachel had stolen the gods.
So Laban went into Jacob's tent and into Leah's tent and into the tent of the two maidservants, but he found nothing. After he came out of Leah's tent, he entered Rachel's tent.
Now Rachel had taken the household gods and put them inside her camel's saddle and was sitting on them. Laban searched through everything in the tent but found nothing.
Rachel said to her father, "Don't be angry, my lord, that I cannot stand up in your presence; I'm having my period." So he searched but could not find the household gods.
  
  Jacob was angry and took Laban to task. "What is my crime?" he asked Laban. "What sin have I committed that you hunt me down?
Now that you have searched through all my goods, what have you found that belongs to your household? Put it here in front of your relatives and mine, and let them judge between the two of us.
"I have been with you for twenty years now. Your sheep and goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks.
I did not bring you animals torn by wild beasts; I bore the loss myself. And you demanded payment from me for whatever was stolen by day or night.
This was my situation: The heat consumed me in the daytime and the cold at night, and sleep fled from my eyes.
  
  It was like this for the twenty years I was in your household. I worked for you fourteen years for your two daughters and six years for your flocks, and you changed my wages ten times.
If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac, had not been with me, you would surely have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my hardship and the toil of my hands, and last night he rebuked you."
Laban answered Jacob, "The women are my daughters, the children are my children, and the flocks are my flocks. All you see is mine. Yet what can I do today about these daughters of mine, or about the children they have borne?
Come now, let's make a covenant, you and I, and let it serve as a witness between us."
So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar.
  
  He said to his relatives, "Gather some stones." So they took stones and piled them in a heap, and they ate there by the heap.
Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, and Jacob called it Galeed.
Laban said, "This heap is a witness between you and me today." That is why it was called Galeed.
It was also called Mizpah, because he said, "May the LORD keep watch between you and me when we are away from each other.
If you mistreat my daughters or if you take any wives besides my daughters, even though no one is with us, remember that God is a witness between you and me."
  
  Laban also said to Jacob, "Here is this heap, and here is this pillar I have set up between you and me.
This heap is a witness, and this pillar is a witness, that I will not go past this heap to your side to harm you and that you will not go past this heap and pillar to my side to harm me.
May the God of Abraham and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us." So Jacob took an oath in the name of the Fear of his father Isaac.
He offered a sacrifice there in the hill country and invited his relatives to a meal. After they had eaten, they spent the night there.
Early the next morning Laban kissed his grandchildren and his daughters and blessed them. Then he left and returned home. 

Mark 2,

A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home.
So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them.
Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them.
Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on.
When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
  
  Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves,
"Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things?
Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'?
But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic,
  
  "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home."
He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"
Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them.
As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.
  
  When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the "sinners" and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: "Why does he eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"
On hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, "How is it that John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?"
Jesus answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them.
But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast.
  
  "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse.
And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins."
One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain.
The Pharisees said to him, "Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"
He answered, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?
  
  In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions."
Then he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."
 

Esther 7,

So the king and Haman went to dine with Queen Esther,
and as they were drinking wine on that second day, the king again asked, "Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted."
Then Queen Esther answered, "If I have found favor with you, O king, and if it pleases your majesty, grant me my life--this is my petition. And spare my people--this is my request.
For I and my people have been sold for destruction and slaughter and annihilation. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king. "
King Xerxes asked Queen Esther, "Who is he? Where is the man who has dared to do such a thing?"
  
  Esther said, "The adversary and enemy is this vile Haman." Then Haman was terrified before the king and queen.
The king got up in a rage, left his wine and went out into the palace garden. But Haman, realizing that the king had already decided his fate, stayed behind to beg Queen Esther for his life.
Just as the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman was falling on the couch where Esther was reclining. The king exclaimed, "Will he even molest the queen while she is with me in the house?" As soon as the word left the king's mouth, they covered Haman's face.
Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs attending the king, said, "A gallows seventy-five feet high stands by Haman's house. He had it made for Mordecai, who spoke up to help the king." The king said, "Hang him on it!"
So they hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the king's fury subsided. 

Romans 2

You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.
Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.
So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment?
Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?
But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.
  
  God "will give to each person according to what he has done."
To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.
But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.
There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile;
but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.
  
  For God does not show favoritism.
All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.
For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law,
since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)
  
  This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God;
if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law;
if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark,
an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth--
  
  you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal?
You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?
You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?
As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.
  
  If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised?
The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.
A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical.
No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.