Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
12 Teach us to number our days
so we can have a wise heart.
13 Come back to us, Lord!
Please, quick!
Have some compassion for your servants!
14 Fill us full every morning with your faithful love
so we can rejoice and celebrate our whole life long.
15 Make us happy for the same amount of time that you afflicted us—
for the same number of years that we saw only trouble.
16 Let your acts be seen by your servants;
let your glory be seen by their children.
17 Let the kindness of the Lord our God be over us.
Make the work of our hands last.
Make the work of our hands last!
22 Those are the words the Lord spoke to your entire assembly with a loud voice while on the mountain, from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick smoke. He added no more. God wrote them on two stone tablets, then gave them to me.
Moses’ intercessory role
23 Now once you heard the voice from the darkness while the mountain was blazing with fire, you came to me—more specifically, all the chiefs of your tribes and your elders came— 24 and you said: “Look here! The Lord our God has shown us his glory and greatness. We’ve heard his voice come out of the very fire itself. We’ve seen firsthand that God can speak to a human being and they can survive! 25 But why should we die? Surely this massive fire will consume us! If we hear any more of the Lord our God’s voice, we will die. 26 Is there anyone who has heard the living God’s voice speaking out of the very fire itself, like we have, and survived? 27 You go and listen to all that the Lord our God says. Then tell us all that the Lord our God speaks to you. We’ll listen and we’ll do it.”
28 The Lord heard what you said, when you said this to me. The Lord then told me: I heard what the people said when they spoke with you. Everything they suggest is good. 29 If only their minds were like this: always fearing me and keeping all my commandments so that things would go well for them and their children forever! 30 Go and tell them: You may go back to your tents. 31 But you, Moses, must stay here with me. I will tell you all the commandments,[a] the regulations, and the case laws that you must teach the Israelites to do in the land that I am giving them to possess.
32 So you must carefully do exactly what the Lord your God commands you. Don’t deviate even a bit! 33 You must walk the precise path that the Lord your God indicates for you so that you will live, and so that things will go well for you, and so you will extend your time on the land that you will possess.
Enter the rest
4 Therefore, since the promise that we can enter into rest is still open, let’s be careful so that none of you will appear to miss it. 2 We also had the good news preached to us, just as the Israelites did. However, the message they heard didn’t help them because they weren’t united in faith with the ones who listened to it. 3 We who have faith are entering the rest. As God said,
And because of my anger I swore:
“They will never enter into my rest!”[a]
And yet God’s works were completed at the foundation of the world. 4 Then somewhere he said this about the seventh day of creation: God rested on the seventh day from all his works.[b] 5 But again, in the passage above, God said, They will never enter my rest![c] 6 Therefore, it’s left open for some to enter it, and the ones who had the good news preached to them before didn’t enter because of disobedience. 7 Just as it says in the passage above, God designates a certain day as “today,” when he says through David much later,
Today, if you hear his voice,
don’t have stubborn hearts.[d]
8 If Joshua gave the Israelites rest, God wouldn’t have spoken about another day later on. 9 So you see that a sabbath rest is left open for God’s people. 10 The one who entered God’s rest also rested from his works, just as God rested from his own.
First summary of the message
11 Therefore, let’s make every effort to enter that rest so that no one will fall by following the same example of disobedience,
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible