Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Song for a Holiday
For the director of music. By the gittith. A psalm of Asaph.
81 Sing for joy to God, our strength;
shout out loud to the God of Jacob.
2 Begin the music. Play the tambourines.
Play pleasant music on the harps and lyres.
3 Blow the trumpet at the time of the New Moon,
when the moon is full, when our feast begins.
4 This is the law for Israel;
it is the command of the God of Jacob.
5 He gave this rule to the people of Joseph
when they went out of the land of Egypt.
I heard a language I did not know, saying:
6 “I took the load off their shoulders;
I let them put down their baskets.
7 When you were in trouble, you called, and I saved you.
I answered you with thunder.
I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah
8 My people, listen. I am warning you.
Israel, please listen to me!
9 You must not have foreign gods;
you must not worship any false god.
10 I, the Lord, am your God,
who brought you out of Egypt.
Open your mouth and I will feed you.
The Day of Rest
12 Then the Lord said to Moses, 13 “Tell the Israelites, ‘You must keep the rules about my Sabbaths, because they will be a sign between you and me from now on. In this way you will know that I, the Lord, make you holy.
14 “‘Make the Sabbath a holy day. If anyone treats the Sabbath like any other day, that person must be put to death; anyone who works on the Sabbath day must be cut off from his people. 15 There are six days for working, but the seventh day is a day of rest, a day holy for the Lord. Anyone who works during the Sabbath day must be put to death. 16 The Israelites must remember the Sabbath day as an agreement between them and me that will continue from now on. 17 The Sabbath day will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, because in six days I, the Lord, made the sky and the earth. On the seventh day I did not work; I rested.’”
18 When the Lord finished speaking to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two stone tablets with the Agreement written on them, written by the finger of God.
Paul Asks to See Caesar
25 Three days after Festus became governor, he went from Caesarea to Jerusalem. 2 There the leading priests and the important leaders made charges against Paul before Festus. 3 They asked Festus to do them a favor. They wanted him to send Paul back to Jerusalem, because they had a plan to kill him on the way. 4 But Festus answered that Paul would be kept in Caesarea and that he himself was returning there soon. 5 He said, “Some of your leaders should go with me. They can accuse the man there in Caesarea, if he has really done something wrong.”
6 Festus stayed in Jerusalem another eight or ten days and then went back to Caesarea. The next day he told the soldiers to bring Paul before him. Festus was seated on the judge’s seat 7 when Paul came into the room. The people who had come from Jerusalem stood around him, making serious charges against him, which they could not prove. 8 This is what Paul said to defend himself: “I have done nothing wrong against the law, against the Temple, or against Caesar.”
9 But Festus wanted to please the people. So he asked Paul, “Do you want to go to Jerusalem for me to judge you there on these charges?”
10 Paul said, “I am standing at Caesar’s judgment seat now, where I should be judged. I have done nothing wrong to them; you know this is true. 11 If I have done something wrong and the law says I must die, I do not ask to be saved from death. But if these charges are not true, then no one can give me to them. I want Caesar to hear my case!”
12 Festus talked about this with his advisers. Then he said, “You have asked to see Caesar, so you will go to Caesar!”
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.