Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Israel from Moses to David
Psalm 78
1 A contemplative song of Asaph.
Listen, my people, to my teaching.
Turn your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth with a parable.
I will utter perplexing sayings from of old,
3 which we have heard and known,
and our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children,
telling to the next generation the praises of Adonai
and His strength and the wonders He has done.
52 But He brought His people out like sheep,
and led them in the wilderness like a flock.
53 He led them to safety, so they did not fear,
but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
54 Then He brought them to His holy territory,
to the mountain His right hand had gotten.
55 He drove out nations before them,
and allotted them an inheritance.
He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
56 Yet they tested and rebelled against El Elyon,
and did not keep His decrees.
57 Like their fathers they turned and were treacherous.
They turned aside like a faulty bow.
58 For they provoked Him
with their high places,
so they aroused His jealousy
with their graven images.
59 God heard and was furious,
and He greatly detested Israel.
60 He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,
the tent He pitched among men.
61 He gave up His strength into captivity,
and His glory into the adversary’s hand.
62 He gave His people over to the sword,
when He was angry at His inheritance.
63 Fire consumed their young men,
and their virgins had no wedding songs.
64 Their priests fell by the sword,
and their widows could not weep.
65 Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
as a warrior shaking off wine.
66 He beat back His foes,
putting them to lasting scorn.
67 Then He detested Joseph’s tent
and chose not the tribe of Ephraim.
68 Instead He chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion, which He loved.
69 He built His Sanctuary like the heights,
like the earth that He established forever.
70 He also chose David His servant
and took him from the sheepfolds,
71 from following nursing ewes.
He brought him to shepherd Jacob His people,
and Israel His inheritance.
72 So He shepherded them with the integrity of His heart,
and led them with His skillful hands.
13 So when evening fell, quails came up and covered the camp. Moreover, in the morning there was a layer of dew all around the camp. 14 When the layer of dew was gone, on the surface of the desert was a thin, flake-like frost, as fine as the frost on the ground. 15 When Bnei-Yisrael saw it, they said one to another, “What is it?”[a] For they did not know what it was. Then Moses said to them, “It is the bread that Adonai has given you to eat. 16 This is the word that Adonai has commanded. Every man is to gather according to his needs, an omer[b] per person, according to the number of people per household. Each man is to take it for those who are in his tent.”
17 Bnei-Yisrael did so, and some gathered more, some less. 18 When they measured it with an omer, those who gathered more had nothing left over, and those that gathered less did not lack at all. Every man gathered according to his appetite.
19 Also Moses said to them, “Let no one save any of it until the morning.”
20 However, they did not listen to Moses. Some of them preserved it until the morning—but it bred worms and rotted. So Moses was angry with them.
21 So they gathered it morning by morning, each man according to his needs, and as the sun became hot it melted. 22 On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each individual. So all the leaders of the community came and informed Moses. 23 But he said to them, “This is what Adonai has said. Tomorrow is a Shabbat rest, a holy Shabbat to Adonai. Bake whatever you would bake, and boil what you would boil. Store up for yourselves everything that remains, to be kept until the morning.”
24 So they set it aside until the morning, just as Moses instructed, and it did not rot nor were there any worms. 25 Then Moses said, “Eat that today, because today is a Shabbat to Adonai. Today you will not find it in the field. 26 You are to gather it for six days, but the seventh day is the Shabbat, and there will be none.”
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” 20 But who in the world are you, O man, who talks back to God? Will what is formed say to the one who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” [a] 21 Does the potter have no right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for common use? 22 Now what if God, willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath designed for destruction? 23 And what if He did so to make known the riches of His glory on vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory?
24 Even us He called—not only from the Jewish people, but also from the Gentiles— 25 as He says also in Hosea,
“I will call those who were not My people,
‘My people,’
and her who was not loved,
‘Beloved.’
26 And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them,
‘You are not My people,’
there they shall be called sons of the living God.”[b]
27 Isaiah cries out concerning Israel,
“Though the number of B’nei-Israel be as the sand of the sea,
only the remnant shall be saved.
28 For Adonai will carry out His word upon the earth,
bringing it to an end and finishing quickly.”[c]
29 And just as Isaiah foretold,
“Unless Adonai-Tzva’ot had left us seed,
we would have become like Sodom and
resembled Gomorrah.”[d]
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.