Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
106 Praise the Lord!
Give thanks to the Lord because he is good!
His faithful love will last forever!
2 No one can describe how great the Lord really is.
No one can praise him enough.
3 Those who obey his commands are happy.
They do good things all the time.
4 Lord, remember me when you show kindness to your people.
Remember to save me too!
5 Let me share in the good things
that you do for your chosen people.
Let me rejoice with your nation.
Let me join with your people in praise.
6 We sinned just as our ancestors did.
We were wrong; we did bad things!
13 But they quickly forgot about what he did.
They did not listen to his advice.
14 They became hungry in the desert,
and they tested him in the wilderness.
15 He gave them what they asked for,
but he also gave them a terrible disease.
16 The people became jealous of Moses.
They became jealous of Aaron, the Lord’s holy priest.
17 The ground opened up and swallowed Dathan.
Then the ground closed up and covered Abiram’s group.
18 Then a fire burned that mob of people.
It burned those wicked people.
19 The people made a golden calf at Mount Horeb.
They worshiped a statue!
20 They traded their glorious God
for a statue of a grass-eating bull!
21 They forgot all about God, the one who saved them,
the one who did the miracles in Egypt.
22 He did amazing things there in Ham’s country[a]!
He did awesome things at the Red Sea!
23 God wanted to destroy those people,
but Moses, the leader he chose, stood in the way.
God was very angry, but Moses begged him to stop,
so God did not destroy the people.[b]
47 Lord our God, save us!
Bring us back together from those nations.
Then we will give thanks to your holy name
and joyfully praise you.
48 Praise the Lord, the God of Israel!
He always was and will always be worthy of praise.
Let all the people say, “Amen!”
Praise the Lord!
21 “The Lord was angry with me because of you. He swore that I could not go across the Jordan River into the good land that the Lord your God is giving you. 22 So I must die here in this land. I cannot go across the Jordan River, but you will soon go across it and take that good land and live there. 23 You must be careful not to forget the agreement that the Lord your God made with you. You must obey the Lord’s command. Don’t make any idols in any form, 24 because the Lord your God hates for his people to worship other gods. And he can be like a fire that destroys!
25 “You will live in the country a long time. You will have children and grandchildren there. After all that time, be sure that you do not then ruin your lives by making any kind of idol! That is something the Lord your God considers evil, and it would make him very angry! 26 So I am warning you now. Heaven and earth are my witnesses! If you do such an evil thing, you will quickly be destroyed! You are crossing the Jordan River now to take that land. But if you make any idols, you will not live there very long. No, you will be destroyed completely! 27 The Lord will scatter you among the nations. And only a few of you will be left alive to go to the countries where the Lord will send you. 28 There you will serve gods made by men—things made of wood and stone that cannot see or hear or eat or smell! 29 But there in these other lands you will look for the Lord your God. And if you look for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him. 30 When you are in trouble—when all these things happen to you—then you will come back to the Lord your God and obey him. 31 The Lord your God is a merciful God! He will not leave you there or destroy you completely. He will not forget the agreement that he made with your ancestors.
Think About the Great Things God Did
32 “Has anything this great ever happened before? Never! Look at the past. Think about everything that happened before you were born. Go all the way back to the time when God made people on the earth. Look at everything that has happened anywhere in the world. Has anyone ever heard about anything as great as this? No! 33 You people heard God speaking to you from a fire, and you are still alive. Has that ever happened to anyone else? No! 34 Has any other god ever tried to go and take a people for himself from inside another nation? No! But you yourselves have seen everything that the Lord your God did for you. He showed you his power and strength. You saw the troubles that tested the people. You saw miracles and wonders. You saw war and the terrible things that happened. 35 The Lord showed you all this so that you would know that he is God. There is no other god like him. 36 He let you hear his voice from heaven so that he could teach you a lesson. On earth he let you see his great fire, and he spoke to you from it.
37 “He loved your ancestors. That is why he chose you, their descendants. And that is why he brought you out of Egypt. He was with you and brought you out with his great power. 38 When you moved forward, he forced out nations that were greater and more powerful than you. And he led you into their land. He gave you their land to live in, as he is still doing today.
39 “So today you must remember and accept that the Lord is God. He is God in heaven above and on the earth below. There is no other god! 40 And you must obey his laws and commands that I give you today. Then everything will go well with you and your children who live after you. And you will live a long time in the land the Lord your God is giving you—it will be yours forever.”
9 Then he said, “You show great skill in avoiding the commands of God so that you can follow your own teachings! 10 Moses said, ‘You must respect your father and mother.’[a] He also said, ‘Whoever says anything bad to their father or mother must be killed.’[b] 11 But you teach that people can say to their father or mother, ‘I have something I could use to help you, but I will not use it for you. I will give it to God.’ 12 You are telling people that they do not have to do anything for their father or mother. 13 So you are teaching that it is not important to do what God said. You think it is more important to follow those traditions you have, which you pass on to others. And you do many things like that.”
14 Jesus called the people to him again. He said, “Everyone should listen to me and understand what I am saying. 15 There is nothing people can put in their mouth that will make them wrong.[c] People are made wrong by what comes from inside them.” 16 [d]
17 Then Jesus left the people and went into the house. The followers asked Jesus about what he had told the people. 18 He said, “Do you still have trouble understanding? Surely you know that nothing that enters the mouth from the outside can make people unacceptable to God. 19 Food does not go into a person’s mind. It goes into the stomach. Then it goes out of the body.” (When Jesus said this, he meant there is no food that is wrong for people to eat.)
20 And Jesus said, “The things that make people wrong are the things that come from the inside. 21 All these bad things begin inside a person, in the mind: bad thoughts, sexual sins, stealing, murder, 22 adultery, greed, doing bad things to people, lying, doing things that are morally wrong, jealousy, insulting people, proud talking, and foolish living. 23 These evil things come from inside a person. And these are the things that make people unacceptable to God.”
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International