Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

1 Oh, the joys of those who do not follow evil men’s advice, who do not hang around with sinners, scoffing at the things of God. ² But they delight in doing everything God wants them to, and day and night are always meditating on his laws and thinking about ways to follow him more closely.

³ They are like trees along a riverbank bearing luscious fruit each season without fail. Their leaves shall never wither, and all they do shall prosper.

⁴ But for sinners, what a different story! They blow away like chaff before the wind. ⁵ They are not safe on Judgment Day; they shall not stand among the godly.

⁶ For the Lord watches over all the plans and paths of godly men, but the paths of the godless lead to doom.

²⁵ That is why I fell down before him for forty days and nights when the Lord was ready to destroy you.

²⁶ “I prayed to him, ‘O Lord God, don’t destroy your own people. They are your inheritance saved from Egypt by your mighty power and glorious strength. ²⁷ Don’t notice the rebellion and stubbornness of these people, but remember instead your promises to your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Oh, please overlook the awful wickedness and sin of these people. ²⁸ For if you destroy them, the Egyptians will say, “It is because the Lord wasn’t able to bring them to the land he promised them,” or “He destroyed them because he hated them: he brought them into the wilderness to slay them.” ²⁹ They are your people and your inheritance that you brought from Egypt by your great power and your mighty arm.’

10 “At that time the Lord told me to cut two more stone tablets like the first ones, and to make a wooden Ark to keep them in, and to return to God on the mountain. ² He said he would rewrite on the tablets the same commandments that were on the tablets I had smashed, and that I should place them in the Ark. ³ So I made an Ark of acacia wood and hewed out two stone tablets like the first two, and took the tablets up on the mountain to God. ⁴ He again wrote the Ten Commandments on them and gave them to me. (They were the same commandments he had given you from the heart of the fire on the mountain as you all watched below.) ⁵ Then I came down and placed the tablets in the Ark I had made, where they are to this day, just as the Lord commanded me.

⁷ And here you yourself must be an example to them of good deeds of every kind. Let everything you do reflect your love of the truth and the fact that you are in dead earnest about it. ⁸ Your conversation should be so sensible and logical that anyone who wants to argue will be ashamed of himself because there won’t be anything to criticize in anything you say!

¹¹ For the free gift of eternal salvation is now being offered to everyone; ¹² and along with this gift comes the realization that God wants us to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures and to live good, God-fearing lives day after day, ¹³ looking forward to that wonderful time we’ve been expecting, when his glory shall be seen—the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. ¹⁴ He died under God’s judgment against our sins so that he could rescue us from constant falling into sin and make us his very own people, with cleansed hearts and real enthusiasm for doing kind things for others. ¹⁵ You must teach these things and encourage your people to do them, correcting them when necessary as one who has every right to do so. Don’t let anyone think that what you say is not important.