Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁷³ You made my body, Lord; now give me sense to heed your laws. ⁷⁴ All those who fear and trust in you will welcome me because I too am trusting in your Word.

^75-77 I know, O Lord, that your decisions are right and that your punishment was right and did me good. Now let your loving-kindness comfort me, just as you promised. Surround me with your tender mercies that I may live. For your law is my delight.

⁷⁸ Let the proud be disgraced, for they have cut me down with all their lies. But I will concentrate my thoughts upon your laws.

⁷⁹ Let all others join me who trust and fear you, and we will discuss your laws. ⁸⁰ Help me to love your every wish; then I will never have to be ashamed of myself.

23 Long after this, when the Lord had given success to the people of Israel against their enemies and when Joshua was very old, ² he called for the leaders of Israel—the elders, judges, and officers—and said to them, “I am an old man now, ³ and you have seen all that the Lord your God has done for you during my lifetime. He has fought for you against your enemies and has given you their land. ^4-5 And I have divided to you the land of the nations yet unconquered as well as the land of those you have already destroyed. All the land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea shall be yours, for the Lord your God will drive out all the people living there now, and you will live there instead, just as he has promised you.

⁶ “But be very sure to follow all the instructions written in the book of the laws of Moses; do not deviate from them the least little bit. ⁷ Be sure that you do not mix with the heathen people still remaining in the land; do not even mention the names of their gods, much less swear by them or worship them. ⁸ But follow the Lord your God just as you have until now. ⁹ He has driven out great, strong nations from before you, and no one has been able to defeat you. ¹⁰ Each one of you has put to flight a thousand of the enemy, for the Lord your God fights for you, just as he has promised. ¹¹ So be very careful to keep on loving him.

¹² “If you don’t, and if you begin to intermarry with the nations around you, ¹³ then know for a certainty that the Lord your God will no longer chase those nations from your land. Instead, they will be a snare and a trap to you, a pain in your side and a thorn in your eyes, and you will disappear from this good land which the Lord your God has given you.

¹⁴ “Soon I will be going the way of all the earth—I am going to die.

“You know very well that God’s promises to you have all come true. ^15-16 But as certainly as the Lord has given you the good things he promised, just as certainly he will bring evil upon you if you disobey him. For if you worship other gods, he will completely wipe you out from this good land that the Lord has given you. His anger will rise hot against you, and you will quickly perish.”

¹³ What horrors await you, you cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida! For if the miracles I did for you had been done in the cities of Tyre and Sidon,^[a] their people would have sat in deep repentance long ago, clothed in sackcloth and throwing ashes on their heads to show their remorse. ¹⁴ Yes, Tyre and Sidon will receive less punishment on the Judgment Day than you. ¹⁵ And you people of Capernaum, what shall I say about you? Will you be exalted to heaven? No, you shall be brought down to hell.”

¹⁶ Then he said to the disciples, “Those who welcome you are welcoming me. And those who reject you are rejecting me. And those who reject me are rejecting God who sent me.”