Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

To the director: A praise song of David.

The Water Becomes Blood

¹⁴ Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh is being stubborn. He refuses to let the people go. ¹⁵ In the morning Pharaoh will go out to the river. Go to him by the edge of the Nile River. Take the walking stick that became a snake. ¹⁶ Tell him this: ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you. He told me to tell you to let his people go worship him in the desert. Until now you have not listened to the Lord. ¹⁷ So the Lord says that he will do something to show you that he is the Lord. I will hit the water of the Nile River with this walking stick in my hand, and the river will turn into blood. ¹⁸ The fish in the river will die, and the river will begin to stink. Then the Egyptians will not be able to drink the water from the river.’”

¹⁹ The Lord said to Moses: “Tell Aaron to hold the walking stick in his hand over the rivers, canals, lakes, and every place where they store water. When he does this, all the water will turn into blood. All the water, even the water stored in wood and stone jars, will turn into blood.”

²⁰ So Moses and Aaron did what the Lord commanded. Aaron raised the walking stick and hit the water in the Nile River. He did this in front of Pharaoh and his officials. So all the water in the river changed into blood. ²¹ The fish in the river died, and the river began to stink. So the Egyptians could not drink water from the river. The blood was everywhere in Egypt.

²² The magicians used their magic to do the same thing. So Pharaoh refused to listen to Moses and Aaron. This happened just as the Lord said. ²³ Pharaoh ignored what Moses and Aaron had done. He turned and went into his house.

²⁴ The Egyptians could not drink the water from the river, so they dug wells around the river for water to drink.

The Storm

¹³ Then a good wind began to blow from the south. The men on the ship thought, “This is the wind we wanted, and now we have it!” So they pulled up the anchor. We sailed very close to the island of Crete. ¹⁴ But then a very strong wind called the “Northeaster” came from across the island. ¹⁵ This wind took the ship and carried it away. The ship could not sail against the wind, so we stopped trying and let the wind blow us.

¹⁶ We went below a small island named Cauda. With the island protecting us from the wind, we were able to bring in the lifeboat, but it was very hard to do. ¹⁷ After the men brought the lifeboat in, they tied ropes around the ship to hold it together. The men were afraid that the ship would hit the sandbanks of Syrtis. So they lowered the sail and let the wind carry the ship.

¹⁸ The next day the storm was blowing against us so hard that the men threw some things out of the ship.^{[a] 19} A day later they threw out the ship’s equipment. ²⁰ For many days we could not see the sun or the stars. The storm was very bad. We lost all hope of staying alive—we thought we would die.

²¹ The men did not eat for a long time. Then one day Paul stood up before them and said, “Men, I told you not to leave Crete. You should have listened to me. Then you would not have all this trouble and loss. ²² But now I tell you to be happy. None of you will die, but the ship will be lost. ²³ Last night an angel came to me from God—the God I worship and belong to. ²⁴ The angel said, ‘Paul, don’t be afraid! You must stand before Caesar. And God has given you this promise: He will save the lives of all those sailing with you.’ ²⁵ So men, there is nothing to worry about. I trust God, and I am sure everything will happen just as his angel told me. ²⁶ But we will crash on an island.”

²⁷ On the fourteenth night we were still being blown around in the Adriatic Sea. The sailors thought we were close to land. ²⁸ They threw a rope into the water with a weight on the end of it. They found that the water was 120 feet^[b] deep. They went a little farther and threw the rope in again. It was 90 feet^[c] deep. ²⁹ The sailors were afraid that we would hit the rocks, so they threw four anchors into the water. Then they prayed for daylight to come. ³⁰ Some of the sailors wanted to leave the ship, and they lowered the lifeboat to the water. They wanted the other men to think that they were throwing more anchors from the front of the ship. ³¹ But Paul told the army officer and the other soldiers, “If these men do not stay in the ship, you will lose all hope of survival.” ³² So the soldiers cut the ropes and let the lifeboat fall into the water.

³³ Just before dawn Paul began persuading all the people to eat something. He said, “For the past two weeks you have been waiting and watching. You have not eaten for 14 days. ³⁴ Now I beg you to eat something. You need it to stay alive. None of you will lose even one hair off your heads.” ³⁵ After he said this, Paul took some bread and thanked God for it before all of them. He broke off a piece and began eating. ³⁶ All the men felt better and started eating too. ³⁷ (There were 276 people on the ship.) ³⁸ We ate all we wanted. Then we began making the ship lighter by throwing the grain into the sea.