Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
97 How I love your teachings!
I think about them all day long.
98 Your commands make me wiser than my enemies,
because they are mine forever.
99 I am wiser than all my teachers,
because I think about your rules.
100 I have more understanding than the elders,
because I follow your orders.
101 I have avoided every evil way
so I could obey your word.
102 I haven’t walked away from your laws,
because you yourself are my teacher.
103 Your promises are sweet to me,
sweeter than honey in my mouth!
104 Your orders give me understanding,
so I hate lying ways.
Israel Confesses Sins
9 On the twenty-fourth day of that same month, the people of Israel gathered. They fasted, and they wore rough cloth and put dust on their heads to show their sadness. 2 Those people whose ancestors were from Israel had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood and confessed their sins and their ancestors’ sins. 3 For a fourth of the day they stood where they were and read from the Book of the Teachings of the Lord their God. For another fourth of the day they confessed their sins and worshiped the Lord their God. 4 These Levites were standing on the stairs: Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Kenani. They called out to the Lord their God with loud voices. 5 Then these Levites spoke: Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah. They said, “Stand up and praise the Lord your God, who lives forever and ever.”
The People’s Prayer
“Blessed be your wonderful name.
It is more wonderful than all blessing and praise.
6 You are the only Lord.
You made the heavens, even the highest heavens,
with all the stars.
You made the earth and everything on it,
the seas and everything in them;
you give life to everything.
The heavenly army worships you.
7 “You are the Lord,
the God who chose Abram
and brought him out of Ur in Babylonia
and named him Abraham.
8 You found him faithful to you,
so you made an agreement with him
to give his descendants the land of the Canaanites,
Hittites, Amorites,
Perizzites, Jebusites, and Girgashites.
You have kept your promise,
because you do what is right.
9 “You saw our ancestors suffering in Egypt
and heard them cry out at the Red Sea.
10 You did signs and miracles against the king of Egypt,
and against all his officers and all his people,
because you knew how proud they were.
You became as famous as you are today.
11 You divided the sea in front of our ancestors;
they walked through on dry ground.
But you threw the people chasing them into the deep water,
like a stone thrown into mighty waters.
12 You led our ancestors with a pillar of cloud by day
and with a pillar of fire at night.
It lit the way
they were supposed to go.
13 You came down to Mount Sinai
and spoke from heaven to our ancestors.
You gave them fair rules and true teachings,
good orders and commands.
14 You told them about your holy Sabbath
and gave them commands, orders, and teachings
through your servant Moses.
15 When they were hungry, you gave them bread from heaven.
When they were thirsty, you brought them water from the rock.
You told them to enter and take over
the land you had promised to give them.
Wives and Husbands
21 Yield to obey each other as you would to Christ.
22 Wives, yield to your husbands, as you do to the Lord, 23 because the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church. And he is the Savior of the body, which is the church. 24 As the church yields to Christ, so you wives should yield to your husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it 26 to make it belong to God. Christ used the word to make the church clean by washing it with water. 27 He died so that he could give the church to himself like a bride in all her beauty. He died so that the church could be pure and without fault, with no evil or sin or any other wrong thing in it. 28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they love their own bodies. The man who loves his wife loves himself. 29 No one ever hates his own body, but feeds and takes care of it. And that is what Christ does for the church, 30 because we are parts of his body. 31 The Scripture says, “So a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one body.”[a] 32 That secret is very important—I am talking about Christ and the church. 33 But each one of you must love his wife as he loves himself, and a wife must respect her husband.
Children and Parents
6 Children, obey your parents as the Lord wants, because this is the right thing to do. 2 The command says, “Honor your father and mother.”[b] This is the first command that has a promise with it— 3 “Then everything will be well with you, and you will have a long life on the earth.”[c]
4 Fathers, do not make your children angry, but raise them with the training and teaching of the Lord.
Slaves and Masters
5 Slaves, obey your masters here on earth with fear and respect and from a sincere heart, just as you obey Christ. 6 You must do this not only while they are watching you, to please them. With all your heart you must do what God wants as people who are obeying Christ. 7 Do your work with enthusiasm. Work as if you were serving the Lord, not as if you were serving only men and women. 8 Remember that the Lord will give a reward to everyone, slave or free, for doing good.
9 Masters, in the same way, be good to your slaves. Do not threaten them. Remember that the One who is your Master and their Master is in heaven, and he treats everyone alike.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.