Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

78 Give ear, O my people, to my law; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.

² I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old,

³ which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

⁴ We will not hide them from their children, showing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord and His strength, and His wonderful works that He hath done.

⁵ For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded to our fathers, that they should make them known to their children;

⁶ that the generation to come might know them, even the children who should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children,

⁷ that they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments;

⁸ and so might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God.

¹⁷ And they sinned yet more against Him by provoking the Most High in the wilderness.

¹⁸ And they tempted God in their heart by asking for meat for their lust.

¹⁹ Yea, they spoke against God: they said, “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?

²⁰ Behold, He smote the rock, that the waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. Can He give bread also? Can He provide flesh for His people?”

²¹ Therefore the Lord heard this and was wroth; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and anger also rose up against Israel,

²² because they believed not in God and trusted not in His salvation,

²³ though He had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of heaven,

²⁴ and had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven.

²⁵ Man ate angels’ food; He sent them meat to the full.

²⁶ He caused an east wind to blow in the heaven, and by His power He brought in the south wind.

²⁷ He rained flesh also upon them as dust, and feathered fowls as the sand of the sea.

²⁸ And He let it fall in the midst of their camp, round about their habitations.

²⁹ So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them their own desire.

8 “All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore unto your fathers.

² And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or not.

³ And He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.

⁴ Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell these forty years.

⁵ Thou shalt also consider in thine heart that as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.

⁶ Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God to walk in His ways and to fear Him.

⁷ For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills,

⁸ a land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates, a land of olive oil, and honey,

⁹ a land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness. Thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.

¹⁰ When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which He hath given thee.

⁸ First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.

⁹ For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the Gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers,

¹⁰ making request that now at length and by any means I might have a prosperous journey by the will of God to come unto you.

¹¹ For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift to the end that ye may be established:

¹² that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith of both you and me.

¹³ Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I have purposed to come unto you (but was prevented hitherto), that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.

¹⁴ I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise;

¹⁵ so, as much as is in me, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you also who are at Rome.