Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
124 If the Lord had not been on our side (let all Israel admit it), if the Lord had not been on our side, 2-3 we would have been swallowed alive by our enemies, destroyed by their anger. 4-5 We would have drowned beneath the flood of these men’s fury and pride.
6 Blessed be Jehovah who has not let them devour us. 7 We have escaped with our lives as a bird from a hunter’s snare. The snare is broken and we are free!
8 Our help is from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
9 God blessed Noah and his sons and told them to have many children and to repopulate the earth.
2-3 “All wild animals and birds and fish will be afraid of you,” God told him; “for I have placed them in your power, and they are yours to use for food, in addition to grain and vegetables. 4 But never eat animals unless their life-blood has been drained off. 5-6 And murder is forbidden. Man-killing animals must die, and any man who murders shall be killed; for to kill a man is to kill one made like God. 7 Yes, have many children and repopulate the earth and subdue it.”
8 Then God told Noah and his sons, 9-11 “I solemnly promise you and your children[a] and the animals you brought with you—all these birds and cattle and wild animals—that I will never again send another flood to destroy the earth. 12 And I seal this promise with this sign: 13 I have placed my rainbow in the clouds as a sign of my promise until the end of time, to you and to all the earth. 14 When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will be seen in the clouds, 15 and I will remember my promise to you and to every being, that never again will the floods come and destroy all life. 16-17 For I will see the rainbow in the cloud and remember my eternal promise to every living being on the earth.”
32 Well, how much more do I need to say? It would take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah and David and Samuel and all the other prophets. 33 These people all trusted God and as a result won battles, overthrew kingdoms, ruled their people well, and received what God had promised them; they were kept from harm in a den of lions 34 and in a fiery furnace. Some, through their faith, escaped death by the sword. Some were made strong again after they had been weak or sick. Others were given great power in battle; they made whole armies turn and run away. 35 And some women, through faith, received their loved ones back again from death. But others trusted God and were beaten to death, preferring to die rather than turn from God and be free—trusting that they would rise to a better life afterwards.
36 Some were laughed at and their backs cut open with whips, and others were chained in dungeons. 37-38 Some died by stoning and some by being sawed in two; others were promised freedom if they would renounce their faith, then were killed with the sword. Some went about in skins of sheep and goats, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in dens and caves. They were hungry and sick and ill-treated—too good for this world. 39 And these men of faith, though they trusted God and won his approval, none of them received all that God had promised them; 40 for God wanted them to wait and share the even better rewards that were prepared for us.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.