Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
God Saved Israel from Egypt
A maskil of Asaph.
78 My people, listen to my teaching;
listen to what I say.
2 I will speak using stories;
I will tell secret things from long ago.
3 We have heard them and known them
by what our ancestors have told us.
4 We will not keep them from our children;
we will tell those who come later
about the praises of the Lord.
We will tell about his power
and the miracles he has done.
52 But God led his people out like sheep
and he guided them like a flock through the desert.
53 He led them to safety so they had nothing to fear,
but their enemies drowned in the sea.
54 So God brought them to his holy land,
to the mountain country he took with his own power.
55 He forced out the other nations,
and he had his people inherit the land.
He let the tribes of Israel settle there in tents.
56 But they tested God
and turned against God Most High;
they did not keep his rules.
57 They turned away and were disloyal just like their ancestors.
They were like a crooked bow that does not shoot straight.
58 They made God angry by building places to worship gods;
they made him jealous with their idols.
59 When God heard them, he became very angry
and rejected the people of Israel completely.
60 He left his dwelling at Shiloh,
the Tent where he lived among the people.
61 He let the Ark, his power, be captured;
he let the Ark, his glory, be taken by enemies.
62 He let his people be killed;
he was very angry with his children.
63 The young men died by fire,
and the young women had no one to marry.
64 Their priests fell by the sword,
but their widows were not allowed to cry.
65 Then the Lord got up as if he had been asleep;
he awoke like a man who had been drunk with wine.
66 He struck down his enemies
and disgraced them forever.
67 But God rejected the family of Joseph;
he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.
68 Instead, he chose the tribe of Judah
and Mount Zion, which he loves.
69 And he built his Temple high like the mountains.
Like the earth, he built it to last forever.
70 He chose David to be his servant
and took him from the sheep pens.
71 He brought him from tending the sheep
so he could lead the flock, the people of Jacob,
his own people, the people of Israel.
72 And David led them with an innocent heart
and guided them with skillful hands.
David Goes to See Ahimelech
21 David went to Nob to see Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech shook with fear when he saw David, and he asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”
2 David answered him, “The king gave me a special order. He told me, ‘No one must know what I am sending you to do or what I told you to do.’ I told my men where to meet me. 3 Now, what food do you have with you? Give me five loaves of bread or anything you find.”
4 The priest said to David, “I don’t have any plain bread here, but I do have some holy bread.[a] You may eat it if your men have kept themselves from women.”
5 David answered, “No women have been near us for days. My men always keep themselves holy, even when we do ordinary work. And this is especially true when the work is holy.”
6 So the priest gave David the holy bread from the presence of God because there was no other. Each day the holy bread was replaced with hot bread.
Jesus Heals a Man at a Pool
5 Later Jesus went to Jerusalem for a special feast. 2 In Jerusalem there is a pool with five covered porches, which is called Bethesda[a] in the Hebrew language.[b] This pool is near the Sheep Gate. 3 Many sick people were lying on the porches beside the pool. Some were blind, some were crippled, and some were paralyzed [, and they waited for the water to move. 4 Sometimes an angel of the Lord came down to the pool and stirred up the water. After the angel did this, the first person to go into the pool was healed from any sickness he had].[c] 5 A man was lying there who had been sick for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw the man and knew that he had been sick for such a long time, Jesus asked him, “Do you want to be well?”
7 The sick man answered, “Sir, there is no one to help me get into the pool when the water starts moving. While I am coming to the water, someone else always gets in before me.”
8 Then Jesus said, “Stand up. Pick up your mat and walk.” 9 And immediately the man was well; he picked up his mat and began to walk.
The day this happened was a Sabbath day. 10 So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “Today is the Sabbath. It is against our law for you to carry your mat on the Sabbath day.”
11 But he answered, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”
12 Then they asked him, “Who is the man who told you to pick up your mat and walk?”
13 But the man who had been healed did not know who it was, because there were many people in that place, and Jesus had left.
14 Later, Jesus found the man at the Temple and said to him, “See, you are well now. Stop sinning so that something worse does not happen to you.”
15 Then the man left and told his people that Jesus was the one who had made him well.
16 Because Jesus was doing this on the Sabbath day, some evil people began to persecute him. 17 But Jesus said to them, “My Father never stops working, and so I keep working, too.”
18 This made them try still harder to kill him. They said, “First Jesus was breaking the law about the Sabbath day. Now he says that God is his own Father, making himself equal with God!”
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.