Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
12 Teach us to count carefully the days of our short lives.
Then we will be wise in how we live.
13 Lord, return to help us!
How long will you be angry with us?
Please be kind to us, your servants!
14 Show your faithful love to us every morning.
Then we will sing with joy,
and we will be happy for as long as we live.
15 For many years you have sent trouble to us.
Now, please make us happy
for as many years as you have given us pain.
16 Do great things again,
so that we, your servants, see them!
Let our children see that you rule as King!
17 Yes, may the Lord our God bless us.
May everything that we do go well!
Yes, may everything go well!
God's 10 special commands
5 Moses called all the Israelites to come together. He said to them:
Listen, Israelites, to the rules and commands that I am teaching to you today. Learn them. Be careful to obey them. 2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Sinai. 3 He did not make this agreement with our ancestors. He made it with all of us who are alive here today. 4 The Lord spoke clearly to you from the middle of the fire on the mountain. 5 (At that time, I stood between the Lord and you. I repeated the Lord's message to you. You were afraid of the fire, so you did not go up the mountain.)
God said this:
6 ‘I am the Lord your God. I brought you out of Egypt, the country where you were slaves.
7 You must not have any other gods except me.
8 You must not make any idol for yourself. Do not make a false god in the shape of anything that is in the sky above. Do not make one in the shape of anything on the earth or in the sea. 9 You must not bend down your head to any idol or worship it. I am the Lord your God and I want you to belong to me alone. I will punish children because of the bad things that their fathers have done. I will also punish their grandchildren and their children too. That is how I will punish everyone who hates me. 10 But I will truly love all those who love me. They are the people who obey my laws. I will continue to love them and their families for ever.
11 You must not speak the name of the Lord your God in a wrong way. The Lord will punish anyone who speaks his name in a wrong way.
12 Always make the Sabbath day a special day for God, as the Lord your God has commanded you. 13 You have six days every week to do all your work. 14 But the seventh day is a Sabbath day. It is special for the Lord your God. You must not do any work on that day. Your son and your daughter must not work on that day. Your servants, male or female, must not work on that day. Your ox or your donkey or any of your animals must not work on that day, nor any foreign person who lives among you. Then your servants can rest in the same way as you rest. 15 You must remember that you were slaves in Egypt. But I, the Lord your God, brought you out by my powerful authority. So the Lord your God has told you to make the Sabbath day a special day.
16 Always respect your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Then you will live for many years in the land that the Lord your God will give to you. And you will be happy.
17 You must not murder anyone.
18 You must not have sex with another person's wife or husband.
19 You must not take another person's things for yourself.
20 You must not say false things against your neighbour.
21 You must not want to take your neighbour's wife for yourself. You must not want his house or his land, or his servants, male or female. You must not want his ox or his donkey or anything else that belongs to your neighbour.’
A place where God's people can rest
7 God's Holy Spirit says this:
‘You must listen when you hear God speak today.
8 Do not refuse to obey him.
Do not be like God's people many years ago.
When they travelled in the wilderness, they turned against me.
They wanted to see if I would punish them.
9 For 40 years your ancestors saw the great things that I did.
But still they did not obey me.
10 That is why I became angry with them.
I said, “They always want to do what is wrong.
They refuse to understand my message.”
11 Because of that, I promised to punish them.
Because I was angry with them, I said,
“They will never arrive in my special place of rest.” ’[a]
12 So be careful, my Christian friends. Do not refuse to trust God. That would be a very bad thing to do. Do not turn away from the God who lives for ever. 13 Instead, help each other to be strong every day. Today, you can still hear God's message. While that is still true, do not refuse to obey God. Do not think that sin will not hurt you. That is a lie. 14 We must continue to trust Christ very well, as we did when we first believed in him. We must continue to trust him until the end of our lives. Then we will share in everything that is his. 15 We have seen what the Bible says:
‘You must listen when you hear God speak today.
Do not refuse to obey him.
Do not be like God's people many years ago,
when they turned against God.’
16 Who were those people who heard God speak? All of them were the people that Moses led away from Egypt. They heard God's message, but they refused to obey him. 17 Who was God angry with for 40 years? He was angry with those same people. They did what was wrong. So they died and their bodies remained in the wilderness. 18 God promised to punish them, because they refused to obey him. He said, ‘They will never arrive in my special place of rest.’
19 So we must be careful ourselves! Those people did not trust God. As a result, they never arrived in God's special place.
EasyEnglish Bible Copyright © MissionAssist 2019 - Charitable Incorporated Organisation 1162807. Used by permission. All rights reserved.