Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Two Ways to Live

² Moses called all the Israelites together and said to them:

You have seen everything the Lord did before your own eyes to the king of Egypt and to the king’s leaders and to the whole country. ³ With your own eyes you saw the great troubles, signs, and miracles. ⁴ But to this day the Lord has not given you a mind that understands; you don’t really understand what you see with your eyes or hear with your ears. ⁵ I led you through the desert for forty years, and during that time neither your clothes nor sandals wore out. ⁶ You ate no bread and drank no wine or beer. This was so you would understand that I am the Lord your God.

⁷ When you came to this place, Sihon king of Heshbon and Og king of Bashan came out to fight us, but we defeated them. ⁸ We captured their land and gave it to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and East Manasseh to be their own.

⁹ You must carefully obey everything in this agreement so that you will succeed in everything you do. ¹⁰ Today you are all standing here before the Lord your God—your leaders and important men, your elders, officers, and all the other men of Israel, ¹¹ your wives and children and the foreigners who live among you, who chop your wood and carry your water. ¹² You are all here to enter into an agreement and a promise with the Lord your God, an agreement the Lord your God is making with you today. ¹³ This will make you today his own people. He will be your God, as he told you and as he promised your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ¹⁴ But I am not just making this agreement and its promises with you ¹⁵ who are standing here before the Lord your God today, but also with those who are not here today.

¹⁶ You know how we lived in Egypt and how we passed through the countries when we came here. ¹⁷ You saw their hateful idols made of wood, stone, silver, and gold. ¹⁸ Make sure no man, woman, family group, or tribe among you leaves the Lord our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. They would be to you like a plant that grows bitter, poisonous fruit.

¹⁹ These are the kind of people who hear these curses but bless themselves, thinking, “We will be safe even though we continue doing what we want to do.” Those people may destroy all of your land, both wet and dry. ²⁰ The Lord will not forgive them. His anger will be like a burning fire against those people, and all the curses written in this book will come on them. The Lord will destroy any memory of them on the earth.

³⁴ “Don’t think that I came to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵ I have come so that

³⁷ “Those who love their father or mother more than they love me are not worthy to be my followers. Those who love their son or daughter more than they love me are not worthy to be my followers. ³⁸ Whoever is not willing to carry the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹ Those who try to hold on to their lives will give up true life. Those who give up their lives for me will hold on to true life. ⁴⁰ Whoever accepts you also accepts me, and whoever accepts me also accepts the One who sent me. ⁴¹ Whoever meets a prophet and accepts him will receive the reward of a prophet. And whoever accepts a good person because that person is good will receive the reward of a good person. ⁴² Those who give one of these little ones a cup of cold water because they are my followers will truly get their reward.”