Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Book 1
Psalms 1—41
Two Ways to Live
1 Happy is the person who doesn’t listen to the wicked.
He doesn’t go where sinners go.
He doesn’t do what bad people do.
2 He loves the Lord’s teachings.
He thinks about those teachings day and night.
3 He is strong, like a tree planted by a river.
It produces fruit in season.
Its leaves don’t die.
Everything he does will succeed.
4 But wicked people are not like that.
They are like useless chaff
that the wind blows away.
5 So the wicked will not escape God’s punishment.
Sinners will not worship God with good people.
6 This is because the Lord protects good people.
But the wicked will be destroyed.
25 The Lord had said he would destroy you. So I threw myself down in front of him for those 40 days and 40 nights. 26 I prayed to the Lord. I said, “Lord God, do not destroy your people. They are your own people. You freed them and brought them out of Egypt by your great power and strength. 27 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Don’t look at how stubborn these people are. Don’t look at their sin and evil. 28 Otherwise, Egypt will say, ‘The Lord was not able to take his people into the land he promised them. He hated them. So he took them into the desert to kill them.’ 29 But they are your people, Lord. They are your own people. You brought them out of Egypt with your great power and strength.”
New Stone Tablets
10 At that time the Lord said to me, “Cut two stone tablets like the first ones. Then come up to me on the mountain. Also make a wooden ark. 2 I will write on the tablets the same words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Put the new tablets in the ark.”
3 So I made the ark out of acacia wood. And I cut out two stone tablets like the first ones. Then I went up on the mountain. I had the two tablets in my hands. 4 The Lord wrote the same things on these tablets he had written before. He wrote the Ten Commandments. He had told them to you on the mountain from the fire. This was on the day you were gathered there. And the Lord gave them to me. 5 Then I turned and came down the mountain. I put the tablets in the ark I had made. That is what the Lord had commanded. The tablets are still there in the ark.
7 You should do good deeds to be an example in every way for young men. When you teach, be honest and serious. 8 And when you speak, speak the truth so that you cannot be criticized. Then anyone who is against you will be ashamed because there is nothing bad that he can say against us.
11 That is the way we should live, because God’s grace has come. That grace can save every person. 12 It teaches us not to live against God and not to do the evil things the world wants to do. That grace teaches us to live in the present age in a wise and right way—a way that shows that we serve God. 13 We should live like that while we are waiting for the coming of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. He is our great hope, and he will come with glory. 14 He gave himself for us; he died to free us from all evil. He died to make us pure people who belong only to him—people who are always wanting to do good things.
15 Tell everyone these things. You have full authority. So use that authority to strengthen the people and tell them what they should do. And do not let anyone treat you as if you were not important.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.