Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 81

To the Chief Musician; set to Philistine lute, or [possibly] a particular Gittite tune. [A Psalm] of Asaph.

¹ Sing aloud to God our Strength! Shout for joy to the God of Jacob!

² Raise a song, sound the timbrel, the sweet lyre with the harp.

³ Blow the trumpet at the New Moon, at the full moon, on our feast day.

⁴ For this is a statute for Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob.

⁵ This He ordained in Joseph [the ^[a]savior] for a testimony when He went out over the land of Egypt. The speech of One Whom I knew not did I hear [saying],

⁶ I removed his shoulder from the burden; his hands were freed from the basket.

⁷ You called in distress and I delivered you; I answered you in the secret place of thunder; I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!^(A)

⁸ Hear, O My people, and I will admonish you—O Israel, if you would listen to Me!

⁹ There shall no strange god be among you, neither shall you worship any alien god.

¹⁰ I am the Lord your God, Who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.

¹¹ But My people would not hearken to My voice, and Israel would have none of Me.

¹² So I gave them up to their own hearts’ lust and let them go after their own stubborn will, that they might follow their own counsels.^(B)

¹³ Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways!

¹⁴ Speedily then I would subdue their enemies and turn My hand against their adversaries.

¹⁵ [Had Israel listened to Me in Egypt, then] those who hated the Lord would have come cringing before Him, and their defeat would have lasted forever.

¹⁶ [God] would feed [Israel now] also with the finest of the wheat; and with honey out of the rock would I satisfy you.

29 Then Jacob went [briskly and cheerfully] on his way [400 miles] and came to the land of the people of the East.

² As he looked, he saw a well in the field; and behold, there were three flocks of sheep lying by it, for out of that well the flocks were watered. The stone on the well’s mouth was a big one,

³ And when all the flocks were gathered there, [the shepherds] would roll the stone from the well’s mouth, water the sheep, and replace the stone on the well’s mouth.

⁴ And Jacob said to them, My brothers, where are you from? And they said, We are from Haran.

⁵ [Jacob] said to them, Do you know Laban the grandson of Nahor? And they said, We know him.

⁶ He said to them, Is it well with him? And they said, He is doing well; and behold, here comes his daughter Rachel with [his] sheep!

⁷ He said, The sun is still high; it is a long time yet before the flocks need be gathered [in their folds]. [Why not] water the sheep and return them to their pasture?

⁸ But they said, We cannot until all the flocks are gathered together; then [the shepherds] roll the stone from the well’s mouth and we water the sheep.

⁹ While he was still talking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she shepherded them.

¹⁰ When Jacob saw Rachel daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his uncle, Jacob went near and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth and watered the flock of his uncle Laban.

¹¹ Then Jacob kissed Rachel and he wept aloud.

¹² Jacob told Rachel he was her father’s relative, Rebekah’s son; and she ran and told her father.

¹³ When Laban heard of the arrival of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced and kissed him and brought him to his house. And [Jacob] told Laban all these things.

¹⁴ Then Laban said to him, Surely you are my bone and my flesh. And [Jacob] stayed with him a month.

10 For I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, that our forefathers were all under and protected by the cloud [in which God’s Presence went before them], and every one of them passed safely through the [Red] Sea,^(A)

² And each one of them [allowed himself also] to be baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea [they were thus brought under obligation to the Law, to Moses, and to the covenant, consecrated and set apart to the service of God];

³ And all [of them] ate the same spiritual (supernaturally given) food,^(B)

⁴ And they all drank the same spiritual (supernaturally given) drink. For they drank from a spiritual Rock which followed them [produced by the sole power of God Himself without natural instrumentality], and the Rock was Christ.^(C)