Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A song to sing as we climb.

A song at night

God repeats his covenant

24 Then God said to Moses, ‘Come up to me, the Lord. Come with Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and 70 of the leaders of Israel. Worship me, but do not come near. ² Only Moses can come near to me, but not the others. The people must not come up the mountain with him.’

³ Moses went and he told the people all the Lord's commands and his teaching. The people answered together, ‘We will do everything that the Lord has told us.’ ⁴ Then Moses wrote down everything that the Lord had said.

Early the next morning, Moses built an altar at the bottom of the mountain. Then he put up 12 stone pillars. Each pillar stood there for one of Israel's 12 tribes. ⁵ Moses sent young Israelite men to burn animals there, as offerings to the Lord. They also killed young bulls as friendship offerings to the Lord.

⁶ Moses took half of the blood of these animals and he put it into some bowls. He splashed the other half of the blood over the altar. ⁷ Then he took the Book of God's Covenant and he read it to the people. They replied, ‘We will do everything that the Lord has told us. We will obey his commands.’

⁸ Then Moses used the blood in the bowls to splash on the people. He said, ‘This blood shows that you accept the covenant that the Lord has made with you. You agree to obey the rules of his covenant.’

⁹ Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and the 70 Israelite leaders went up the mountain. ¹⁰ They saw the God of Israel there. Under his feet was something like a jewel called sapphire. It was as bright as a clear blue sky. ¹¹ God did not hurt those Israelite leaders. They saw God. They ate a meal and they drank together.

Jesus shows himself to the disciples again

21 After that, Jesus showed himself to the disciples again when they were by Lake Tiberias.^[a] This is how it happened. ² Simon Peter, Thomas the Twin and Nathanael were together. (Nathanael came from Cana in Galilee.) The sons of Zebedee (James and John) and two other disciples were also there. ³ Simon Peter said to the other disciples, ‘I will now go and catch fish.’ They replied, ‘We will come with you.’ So they went out and they got into the boat. But they caught nothing during that night.

⁴ Early in the morning, Jesus was standing on the shore of the lake. But the disciples did not know that it was Jesus who stood there. ⁵ Then Jesus asked them, ‘Friends, have you caught any fish?’ They answered, ‘No!’ ⁶ He said, ‘Throw your net out on the right side of the boat. If you do that, you will catch some fish.’ So they threw the net out into the water. Then they caught so many fish that they could not pull the net back into the boat.

⁷ The disciple that Jesus loved said to Peter, ‘It is the Lord!’ When Simon Peter heard him say, ‘It is the Lord,’ he put on his coat. (He had been wearing only a few clothes.) Then he jumped into the water. ⁸ The other disciples followed him in the boat. They pulled the net that was full of fish behind them. They were not far from the shore. It was about 100 metres away. ⁹ When they came to the shore, they saw that someone had lit a fire. Some fish were cooking on it. There was some bread there, too. ¹⁰ Jesus said to them, ‘Bring here some of the fish that you have just caught.’

¹¹ Simon Peter got back into the boat and he pulled the net onto the shore. It was full of 153 big fish. There were so many fish, but the net had not broken. ¹² Jesus said to them, ‘Come here and eat breakfast.’ None of the disciples was brave enough to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ They knew that it was the Lord. ¹³ So Jesus took the bread and he gave it to them. Then he did the same with the fish.

¹⁴ After Jesus died and became alive again, this was now the third time that he showed himself to his disciples.