Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 106[a]
Israel’s Confession of Sin
1 Hallelujah!
A
Give thanks to the Lord, who is good,
whose mercy endures forever.(A)
2 Who can recount the mighty deeds of the Lord,
proclaim in full God’s praise?
3 Blessed those who do what is right,
whose deeds are always just.(B)
4 Remember me, Lord, as you favor your people;
come to me with your saving help,(C)
5 That I may see the prosperity of your chosen ones,
rejoice in the joy of your people,
and glory with your heritage.
B
6 We have sinned like our ancestors;(D)
we have done wrong and are guilty.
II
13 But they soon forgot all he had done;
they had no patience for his plan.
14 In the desert they gave in to their cravings,
tempted God in the wasteland.(A)
15 So he gave them what they asked
and sent a wasting disease against them.(B)
III
16 In the camp they challenged Moses(C)
and Aaron, the holy one of the Lord.
17 The earth opened and swallowed Dathan,
it closed on the followers of Abiram.
18 Against their company the fire blazed;
flames consumed the wicked.
IV
19 At Horeb they fashioned a calf,(D)
worshiped a metal statue.
20 They exchanged their glory[a]
for the image of a grass-eating bull.
21 They forgot the God who had saved them,
who had done great deeds in Egypt,(E)
22 Amazing deeds in the land of Ham,
fearsome deeds at the Red Sea.
23 He would have decreed their destruction,
had not Moses, his chosen one,
Withstood him in the breach[b]
to turn back his destroying anger.(F)
21 But the Lord was angry with me on your account(A) and swore that I should not cross the Jordan nor enter the good land which the Lord, your God, is giving you as a heritage. 22 I myself shall die in this country; I shall not cross the Jordan; but you are going to cross over and take possession of that good land.(B) 23 Be careful, therefore, lest you forget the covenant which the Lord, your God, has made with you, and fashion for yourselves against his command an idol in any form whatsoever.(C) 24 For the Lord, your God, is a consuming fire, a jealous God.[a](D)
God’s Fidelity and Love. 25 (E)When you have children and children’s children, and have grown old in the land, should you then act corruptly by fashioning an idol in the form of anything, and by this evil done in his sight provoke the Lord, your God, 26 I call heaven and earth this day to witness against you, that you shall all quickly perish from the land which you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You shall not live in it for any length of time but shall be utterly wiped out.(F) 27 The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and there shall remain but a handful of you among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. 28 There you shall serve gods that are works of human hands, of wood and stone, gods which can neither see nor hear, neither eat nor smell.(G) 29 Yet when you seek the Lord, your God, from there, you shall indeed find him if you search after him with all your heart and soul.(H) 30 In your distress, when all these things shall have come upon you, you shall finally return to the Lord, your God, and listen to his voice. 31 Since the Lord, your God, is a merciful God, he will not abandon or destroy you, nor forget the covenant with your ancestors that he swore to them.(I)
32 Ask now of the days of old, before your time, ever since God created humankind upon the earth; ask from one end of the sky to the other: Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of? 33 Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?(J) 34 Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders,(K) by war, with strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terrors, all of which the Lord, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? 35 All this you were allowed to see that you might know that the Lord is God; there is no other.(L) 36 Out of the heavens he let you hear his voice to discipline you; on earth he let you see his great fire, and you heard him speaking out of the fire. 37 For love of your ancestors he chose their descendants after them and by his presence and great power led you out of Egypt, 38 dispossessing before you nations greater and mightier than you, so as to bring you in and to give their land to you as a heritage, as it is today. 39 This is why you must now acknowledge, and fix in your heart, that the Lord is God in the heavens above and on earth below, and that there is no other.(M) 40 And you must keep his statutes and commandments which I command you today, that you and your children after you may prosper, and that you may have long life on the land which the Lord, your God, is giving you forever.(N)
9 He went on to say, “How well you have set aside the commandment of God in order to uphold your tradition! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and ‘Whoever curses father or mother shall die.’(A) 11 Yet you say, ‘If a person says to father or mother, “Any support you might have had from me is qorban”’[a] (meaning, dedicated to God), 12 you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. 13 You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.” 14 (B)He summoned the crowd again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand. 15 Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” [16 ][b]
17 [c](C)When he got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. 18 He said to them, “Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19 [d](D)since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the latrine?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 “But what comes out of a person, that is what defiles. 21 (E)From within people, from their hearts, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. 23 All these evils come from within and they defile.”
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