Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Call to Praise the Lord
A psalm of thanks.
100 Shout to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Serve the Lord with joy;
come before him with singing.
3 Know that the Lord is God.
He made us, and we belong to him;
we are his people, the sheep he tends.
4 Come into his city with songs of thanksgiving
and into his courtyards with songs of praise.
Thank him and praise his name.
5 The Lord is good. His love is forever,
and his loyalty goes on and on.
God Repeats His Call to Moses
28 The Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt 29 and said, “I am the Lord. Tell the king of Egypt everything I tell you.”
30 But Moses answered, “I am not a good speaker. The king will not listen to me.”
7 The Lord said to Moses, “I have made you like God to the king of Egypt, and your brother Aaron will be like a prophet for you. 2 Tell Aaron your brother everything that I command you, and let him tell the king of Egypt to let the Israelites leave his country. 3 But I will make the king stubborn. I will do many miracles in Egypt, 4 but he will still refuse to listen. So then I will punish Egypt terribly, and I will lead my divisions, my people the Israelites, out of that land. 5 I will punish Egypt with my power, and I will bring the Israelites out of that land. Then they will know I am the Lord.”
6 Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded them. 7 Moses was eighty years old and Aaron was eighty-three when they spoke to the king.
Aaron’s Walking Stick Becomes a Snake
8 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, 9 “Moses, when the king asks you to do a miracle, tell Aaron to throw his walking stick down in front of the king, and it will become a snake.”
10 So Moses and Aaron went to the king as the Lord had commanded. Aaron threw his walking stick down in front of the king and his officers, and it became a snake.
11 So the king called in his wise men and his magicians, and with their tricks the Egyptian magicians were able to do the same thing. 12 They threw their walking sticks on the ground, and their sticks became snakes. But Aaron’s stick swallowed theirs. 13 Still the king was stubborn and refused to listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said.
Obey God’s Law
7 When some Pharisees and some teachers of the law came from Jerusalem, they gathered around Jesus. 2 They saw that some of Jesus’ followers ate food with hands that were not clean, that is, they hadn’t washed them. 3 (The Pharisees and all the Jews never eat before washing their hands in the way required by their unwritten laws. 4 And when they buy something in the market, they never eat it until they wash themselves in a special way. They also follow many other unwritten laws, such as the washing of cups, pitchers, and pots.[a])
5 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law said to Jesus, “Why don’t your followers obey the unwritten laws which have been handed down to us? Why do your followers eat their food with hands that are not clean?”
6 Jesus answered, “Isaiah was right when he spoke about you hypocrites. He wrote,
‘These people show honor to me with words,
but their hearts are far from me.
7 Their worship of me is worthless.
The things they teach are nothing but human rules.’ Isaiah 29:13
8 You have stopped following the commands of God, and you follow only human teachings.”[b]
9 Then Jesus said to them, “You cleverly ignore the commands of God so you can follow your own teachings. 10 Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’[c] and ‘Anyone who says cruel things to his father or mother must be put to death.’[d] 11 But you say a person can tell his father or mother, ‘I have something I could use to help you, but it is Corban—a gift to God.’ 12 You no longer let that person use that money for his father or his mother. 13 By your own rules, which you teach people, you are rejecting what God said. And you do many things like that.”
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.