Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A song for going up to the Temple.

God and Israel Make Their Agreement

24 The Lord told Moses, “You, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the 70 elders of Israel must come up the mountain and worship me from a distance. ² Then only Moses will come close to the Lord. The other men must not come close, and the rest of the people must not even come up the mountain.”

³ Moses told the people all the rules and commands from the Lord. Then all the people said, “We will obey all the commands that the Lord has spoken.”

⁴ So Moses wrote down all the commands of the Lord. The next morning he got up and built an altar near the bottom of the mountain. And he set up twelve stones—one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. ⁵ Then Moses sent young men of Israel to offer sacrifices. These men offered bulls to the Lord as burnt offerings and fellowship offerings.

⁶ Moses saved the blood from these animals. He put half of the blood in bowls, and he poured the other half of the blood on the altar.^[a]

⁷ Moses read the scroll with the special agreement written on it. He read the agreement so that all the people could hear him. And the people said, “We have heard the laws that the Lord has given us. And we agree to obey them.”

⁸ Then Moses held the bowls full of the blood from the sacrifices. He threw that blood on the people. He said, “This blood shows that the Lord has made a special agreement with you. The laws God gave you explain the agreement.”

⁹ Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the 70 elders of Israel went up the mountain. ¹⁰ On the mountain, these men saw the God of Israel. He was standing on something that looked like blue sapphires, as clear as the sky! ¹¹ All the leaders of Israel saw God, but God did not destroy them.^[b] They all ate and drank together.

Jesus Appears to Seven Followers

21 Later, Jesus appeared again to his followers by Lake Galilee.^[a] This is how it happened: ² Some of the followers were together—Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the two sons of Zebedee, and two other followers. ³ Simon Peter said, “I am going out to fish.”

The other followers said, “We will go with you.” So all of them went out and got into the boat. They fished that night but caught nothing.

⁴ Early the next morning Jesus stood on the shore. But the followers did not know it was Jesus. ⁵ Then he said to them, “Friends, have you caught any fish?”

They answered, “No.”

⁶ He said, “Throw your net into the water on the right side of your boat. You will find some fish there.” So they did this. They caught so many fish that they could not pull the net back into the boat.

⁷ The follower Jesus loved very much said to Peter, “That man is the Lord!” When Peter heard him say it was the Lord, he wrapped his coat around himself. (He had taken his clothes off to work.) Then he jumped into the water. ⁸ The other followers went to shore in the boat. They pulled the net full of fish. They were not very far from shore, only about 100 yards.^{[b] 9} When they stepped out of the boat and onto the shore, they saw a fire of hot coals. There were fish on the fire and some bread there too. ¹⁰ Then Jesus said, “Bring some of the fish that you caught.”

¹¹ Simon Peter got into the boat and pulled the net to the shore. It was full of big fish—153 of them! But even with that many fish, the net did not tear. ¹² Jesus said to them, “Come and eat.” None of the followers would ask him, “Who are you?” They knew he was the Lord. ¹³ Jesus walked over to get the bread and gave it to them. He also gave them the fish.

¹⁴ This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his followers after he was raised from death.