Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Mem
97 Oh, how I love Your law!
I fix my mind on it all day long.
98 Your commands make me wiser than my enemies
because they are always with me.
99 I have more discernment than all my teachers
because I study and meditate on Your testimonies.
100 I comprehend more than those who are my elders
because I have kept Your precepts.
101 I have kept my feet from walking the paths of evil
so that I may live according to Your word.
102 I have not neglected Your lessons,
for You, God, have been my teacher.
103 Your words are sweet to my taste!
Yes, they are sweeter than honey in my mouth!
104 I gain understanding from Your instructions;
that’s why I hate every deceitful path.
9 Later, on the 24th day of that same month, the Israelites came back together. Everyone fasted and wore sackcloth to show their repentance. They covered their heads with dust to show their mourning. 2 They also separated themselves from the foreigners who were living among them. Then the Israelites stood up and confessed their sins and the sins of their dead ancestors. 3 For three hours[a] they stood in their designated places and read from the book of the Eternal’s law. Following that they confessed and worshiped the Eternal One, their True God, for another three hours. 4 On the stairs above them stood the Levites: Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Chenani. With loud cries they called out to the Eternal, their True God.
5 The same Levites (Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah) instructed the people.
Levites: Stand up! Worship the Eternal who is your God who exists from everlasting to everlasting.
May Your glorious name be praised—
even lifted up beyond all blessing and praise.
6 You are the Eternal, the only One.
The skies are Your work alone—
You made the heavens above those skies
and the stars that fill them.
You made the earth and everything upon it,
the seas and all that lives within their depths.
Your creation lives and is sustained by You,
and those who dwell in the heavens
Fall down before You and worship.
7 You are the Eternal God.
You chose Abram and drew him out from Ur of the Chaldees.
You changed his name to Abraham.
8 In him You found a true heart,
a heart devoted to You.
With him You made a covenant that
the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites,
The Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites
would belong to him and to his descendants.
And what You have promised, You have done
because You are righteous.
9 When our ancestors suffered in Egypt,
You saw their misery.
When they were trapped at the edge of the Red Sea,
You heard their cries for help.
10-11 Pharaoh and all who served him
and all his subjects were completely overwhelmed
by the signs and wonders You performed.
In their arrogance, they opposed Your people, our ancestors.
So You opened the sea, and Your people walked through the water on dry ground,
and no one has forgotten the name of the One who did it to this day.
But the Egyptians pursued our ancestors into the sea,
You threw those running after our ancestors into the depths of the sea,
like a heavy rock hurled into water.
12 During the day, You led them by a cloud shaped like a pillar.
During the night, a pillar of fire lit the way, showing them where to go.
13 You led them to Mount Sinai;
and when they arrived, You came down from heaven and spoke to them.
You gave them right decrees and good laws,
beneficial statutes and commands revealing Your will for them.
14 You revealed to Your people Your sacred Sabbath
and how to keep it holy.
Through Your servant Moses You taught them how to live,
giving commands and decrees.
15 When Your people were hungry,
You gave them food from heaven.
When they were thirsty, You made water flow out of a rock.
You told them to enter the land You promised them.
You told them to enter and take possession of it.
Wisdom is a rare commodity. Paul urges believers, then and now, to walk wisely. It involves living well every day. Time itself seems to be co-opted by dark forces. But when believers understand God’s will, avoid drunkenness, and allow God to fill them with His Spirit, they are able to walk wisely and live well. The Spirit-filled life is not just for a special few; it is the normal Christian life, and it affects everything, including how we live in community and how we treat others at home.
21 And the Spirit makes it possible to submit humbly to one another out of respect for the Anointed. 22 Wives, it should be no different with your husbands. Submit to them as you do to the Lord, 23 for God has given husbands a sacred duty to lead as the Anointed leads the church and serves as the head. (The church is His body; He is her Savior.) 24 So wives should submit to their husbands, respectfully, in all things, just as the church yields to the Anointed One.
25-26 Husbands, you must love your wives so deeply, purely, and sacrificially that we can understand it only when we compare it to the love the Anointed One has for His bride, the church. We know He gave Himself up completely to make her His own, washing her clean of all her impurity with water and the powerful presence of His word. 27 He has given Himself so that He can present the church as His radiant bride, unstained, unwrinkled, and unblemished—completely free from all impurity—holy and innocent before Him. 28 So husbands should care for their wives as if their lives depended on it, the same way they care for their own bodies. As you love her, you ultimately are loving part of yourself (remember, you are one flesh). 29 No one really hates his own body; he takes care to feed and love it, just as the Anointed takes care of His church, 30 because we are living members of His body. 31 “And this is the reason a man leaves his father and his mother and is united with his wife; the two come together as one flesh.”[a] 32 There is a great mystery reflected in this Scripture, and I say that it has to do with the marriage of the Anointed One and the church. 33 Nevertheless, each husband is to love and protect his own wife as if she were his very heart, and each wife is to respect her own husband.
6 Now to you, children, obey your parents in the Lord because this is right in God’s eyes. 2 This is the first commandment onto which He added a promise: “Honor your father and your mother, and 3 if you do, you will live long and well in this land.”[b]
4 And, fathers, do not drive your children mad, but nurture them in the discipline and teaching that come from the Lord.
5 Slaves, respect and fear your earthly masters. Obey and serve them with the same sincerity of heart as you serve the Anointed One. 6 Don’t put on a show just because they are looking (as if you were a people pleaser); but as a slave of the Anointed, do the will of God from your heart. 7 Serve them in good faith as if you were serving the Lord, not men, 8 because all good deeds are gifted back from the Lord, and they are yours whether you are a slave or not.
9 Masters, hear this: act in kind to your slaves. Stop terrorizing and threatening them. Don’t forget that you have a Master in heaven who does not take sides or pick favorites.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.