Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 78
A maskil[a] of Asaph.
78 Listen, my people, to my teaching;
tilt your ears toward the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth with a proverb.
I’ll declare riddles from days long gone—
3 ones that we’ve heard and learned about,
ones that our ancestors told us.
4 We won’t hide them from their descendants;
we’ll tell the next generation
all about the praise due the Lord and his strength—
the wondrous works God has done.
5 He established a law for Jacob
and set up Instruction for Israel,
ordering our ancestors
to teach them to their children.
6 This is so that the next generation
and children not yet born will know these things,
and so they can rise up and tell their children
7 to put their hope in God—
never forgetting God’s deeds,
but keeping God’s commandments—
8 and so that they won’t become like their ancestors:
a rebellious, stubborn generation,
a generation whose heart wasn’t set firm
and whose spirit wasn’t faithful to God.
17 But they continued to sin against God,
rebelling against the Most High in the desert.
18 They tested God in their hearts,
demanded food for their stomachs.
19 They spoke against God!
“Can God set a dinner table in the wilderness?” they asked.
20 “True, God struck the rock
and water gushed and streams flowed,
but can he give bread too?
Can he provide meat for his people?”
21 When the Lord heard this, he became furious.
A fire was ignited against Jacob;
wrath also burned against Israel
22 because they had no faith in God,
because they didn’t trust his saving power.
23 God gave orders to the skies above,
opened heaven’s doors,
24 and rained manna on them so they could eat.
He gave them the very grain of heaven!
25 Each person ate the bread of the powerful ones;[a]
God sent provisions to satisfy them.
26 God set the east wind moving across the skies
and drove the south wind by his strength.
27 He rained meat on them as if it were dust in the air;
he rained as many birds as the sand on the seashore!
28 God brought the birds down in the center of their camp,
all around their dwellings.
29 So they ate and were completely satisfied;
God gave them exactly what they had craved.
8 You must carefully perform all of the commandment that I am commanding you right now so you can live and multiply and enter and take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your ancestors. 2 Remember the long road on which the Lord your God led you during these forty years in the desert so he could humble you, testing you to find out what was in your heart: whether you would keep his commandments or not. 3 He humbled you by making you hungry and then feeding you the manna that neither you nor your ancestors had ever experienced, so he could teach you that people don’t live on bread alone. No, they live based on whatever the Lord says.[a] 4 During these forty years, your clothes didn’t wear out and your feet didn’t swell up. 5 Know then in your heart that the Lord your God has been disciplining you just as a father disciplines his children. 6 Keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him, 7 because the Lord your God is bringing you to a wonderful land, a land with streams of water, springs, and wells that gush up in the valleys and on the hills; 8 a land of wheat and barley, vines, fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of olive oil and honey; 9 a land where you will eat food without any shortage—you won’t lack a thing there—a land where stone is hard as iron and where you will mine copper from the hills. 10 You will eat, you will be satisfied, and you will bless the Lord your God in the wonderful land that he’s given you.
Thanksgiving and Paul’s plans to visit
8 First of all, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because the news about your faithfulness is being spread throughout the whole world. 9 I serve God in my spirit by preaching the good news about God’s Son, and God is my witness that I continually mention you 10 in all my prayers. I’m always asking that somehow, by God’s will, I might succeed in visiting you at last. 11 I really want to see you to pass along some spiritual gift to you so that you can be strengthened. 12 What I mean is that we can mutually encourage each other while I am with you. We can be encouraged by the faithfulness we find in each other, both your faithfulness and mine.
13 I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that I planned to visit you many times, although I have been prevented from coming until now. I want to harvest some fruit among you, just as I have done among the other Gentiles. 14 I have a responsibility both to Greeks and to those who don’t speak Greek, both to the wise and to the foolish.
God’s righteousness is revealed
15 That’s why I’m ready to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible