Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 99

¹ The Lord reigns, let the peoples tremble [with reverential fear]! He sits [enthroned] above the cherubim, let the earth quake!

² The Lord is great in Zion, and He is high above all the peoples.

³ Let them confess and praise Your great name, awesome and reverence inspiring! It is holy, and holy is He!^(A)

⁴ The strength of the king who loves righteousness and equity You establish in uprightness; You execute justice and righteousness in Jacob (Israel).

⁵ Extol the Lord our God and worship at His footstool! Holy is He!

⁶ Moses and Aaron were among His priests, and Samuel was among those who called upon His name; they called upon the Lord, and He answered them.

⁷ He spoke to them in the pillar of cloud; they kept His testimonies and the statutes that He gave them.^(B)

⁸ You answered them, O Lord our God; You were a forgiving God to them, although avenging their evildoing and wicked practices.

⁹ Extol the Lord our God and worship at His holy hill, for the Lord our God is holy!

9 On the eighth day Moses called Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel;

² And he said to Aaron, Take a young calf for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering, [each] without blemish, and offer them before the Lord.^(A)

³ And say to the Israelites, Take a male goat for a sin offering, and a calf and a lamb, both a year old, without blemish, for a burnt offering,

⁴ Also a bull and a ram for peace offerings to sacrifice before the Lord, and a cereal offering mixed with oil, for today the Lord will appear to you.

⁵ They brought before the Tent of Meeting what Moses [had] commanded; all the congregation drew near and stood before the Lord.

⁶ And Moses said, This is the thing which the Lord commanded you to do, and the glory of the Lord will appear to you.

⁷ And Moses said to Aaron, Draw near to the altar and offer your sin offering and your burnt offering and make atonement for yourself and for the people; and offer the offering of the people and make atonement for them, as the Lord commanded.^(B)

⁸ So Aaron drew near to the altar and killed the calf of the sin offering, which was designated for himself.

⁹ The sons of Aaron presented the blood to him; he dipped his finger in the blood and put it on the horns of the altar and poured out the blood at the altar’s base;

¹⁰ But the fat, the kidneys, and the lobe of the liver from the sin offering he burned on the altar, as the Lord had commanded Moses.

¹¹ And the flesh and the hide Aaron burned with fire outside the camp.

²² Then Aaron lifted his hands toward the people and blessed them, and came down [from the altar] after offering the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offerings.

²³ Moses and Aaron went into the Tent of Meeting, and when they came out they blessed the people, and the glory of the Lord [the Shekinah cloud] appeared to all the people [as promised].^(A)

²⁴ Then there came a fire out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat on the altar; and when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces.

4 So, since Christ suffered in the flesh ^[a]for us, for you, arm yourselves with the same thought and ^[b]purpose [patiently to suffer rather than fail to please God]. For whoever has suffered in the flesh [having ^[c]the mind of Christ] is done with [intentional] sin [has stopped pleasing himself and the world, and pleases God],

² So that he can no longer spend the rest of his natural life living by [his] human appetites and desires, but [he lives] for what God wills.

³ For the time that is past already suffices for doing what the Gentiles like to do—living [as you have done] in shameless, insolent wantonness, in lustful desires, drunkenness, reveling, drinking bouts and abominable, lawless idolatries.

⁴ They are astonished and think it very queer that you do not now run hand in hand with them in the same excesses of dissipation, and they abuse [you].

⁵ But they will have to give an account to Him Who is ready to judge and pass sentence on the living and the dead.

⁶ For this is why the good news (the Gospel) was preached [^[d]in their lifetime] even to the dead, that though judged in fleshly bodies as men are, they might live in the spirit as God does.