Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Hymn of Thanksgiving
For the director of music. A psalm of David. A song.
65 God, you will be praised in Jerusalem.
We will keep our promises to you.
2 You hear our prayers.
All people will come to you.
3 Our guilt overwhelms us,
but you forgive our sins.
4 Happy are the people you choose
and invite to stay in your court.
We are filled with good things in your house,
your holy Temple.
5 You answer us in amazing ways,
God our Savior.
People everywhere on the earth
and beyond the sea trust you.
6 You made the mountains by your strength;
you are dressed in power.
7 You stopped the roaring seas,
the roaring waves,
and the uproar of the nations.
8 Even those people at the ends of the earth fear your miracles.
You are praised from where the sun rises to where it sets.
9 You take care of the land and water it;
you make it very fertile.
The rivers of God are full of water.
Grain grows because you make it grow.
10 You send rain to the plowed fields;
you fill the rows with water.
You soften the ground with rain,
and then you bless it with crops.
11 You give the year a good harvest,
and you load the wagons with many crops.
12 The desert is covered with grass
and the hills with happiness.
13 The pastures are full of flocks,
and the valleys are covered with grain.
Everything shouts and sings for joy.
The Water Becomes Blood
14 Then the Lord said to Moses, “The king is being stubborn and refuses to let the people go. 15 In the morning the king will go out to the Nile River. Go meet him by the edge of the river, and take with you the walking stick that became a snake. 16 Tell him: The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you. He said, ‘Let my people go worship me in the desert.’ Until now you have not listened. 17 This is what the Lord says: ‘This is how you will know that I am the Lord. I will strike the water of the Nile River with this stick in my hand, and the water will change into blood. 18 Then the fish in the Nile will die, and the river will begin to stink. The Egyptians will not be able to drink the water from the Nile.’”
19 The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron: ‘Take the walking stick in your hand and stretch your hand over the rivers, canals, ponds, and pools in Egypt.’ The water will become blood everywhere in Egypt, both in wooden buckets and in stone jars.”
20 So Moses and Aaron did just as the Lord had commanded. In front of the king and his officers, Aaron raised his walking stick and struck the water in the Nile River. So all the water in the Nile changed into blood. 21 The fish in the Nile died, and the river began to stink, so the Egyptians could not drink water from it. Blood was everywhere in the land of Egypt.
22 Using their tricks, the magicians of Egypt did the same thing. So the king was stubborn and refused to listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the Lord had said. 23 The king turned and went into his palace and ignored what Moses and Aaron had done. 24 The Egyptians could not drink the water from the Nile, so all of them dug along the bank of the river, looking for water to drink.
The Storm
13 When 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, and we sailed very close to the island of Crete. 14 But then a very strong wind named the “northeaster” came from the island. 15 The ship was caught in it and could not sail against it. So we stopped trying and let the wind carry us. 16 When we went below a small island named Cauda, we were barely able to bring in the lifeboat. 17 After the men took 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,[a] so they lowered the sail and let the wind carry the ship. 18 The next day the storm was blowing us so hard that the men threw out some of the cargo. 19 A day later with their own hands they threw out the ship’s equipment. 20 When we could not see the sun or the stars for many days, and the storm was very bad, we lost all hope of being saved.
21 After the men had gone without food for a long time, Paul stood up before them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me. You should not have sailed from Crete. Then you would not have all this trouble and loss. 22 But now I tell you to cheer up because none of you will die. Only the ship will be lost. 23 Last night an angel came to me from the God I belong to and worship. 24 The angel said, ‘Paul, do not be afraid. You must stand before Caesar. And God has promised you that he will save the lives of everyone sailing with you.’ 25 So men, have courage. I trust in God that everything will happen as his angel told me. 26 But we will crash on an island.”
27 On the fourteenth night we were still being carried around in the Adriatic Sea.[b] About midnight the sailors thought we were close to land, 28 so they lowered a rope with a weight on the end of it into the water. They found that the water was one hundred twenty feet deep. They went a little farther and lowered the rope again. It was ninety feet deep. 29 The sailors were afraid that we would hit the rocks, so they threw four anchors into the water and prayed for daylight to come. 30 Some of the sailors wanted to leave the ship, and they lowered the lifeboat, pretending they were throwing more anchors from the front of the ship. 31 But Paul told the officer and the other soldiers, “If these men do not stay in the ship, your lives cannot be saved.” 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 fourteen days you have been waiting and watching and not eating. 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 They all felt better and started eating, too. 37 There were two hundred seventy-six people on the ship. 38 When they had eaten all they wanted, they began making the ship lighter by throwing the grain into the sea.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.