Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
41 Let Your mercy and loving-kindness come also to me, O Lord, even Your salvation according to Your promise;
42 Then shall I have an answer for those who taunt and reproach me, for I lean on, rely on, and trust in Your word.
43 And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth, for I hope in Your ordinances.
44 I will keep Your law continually, forever and ever [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying it].
45 And I will walk at liberty and at ease, for I have sought and inquired for [and desperately required] Your precepts.
46 I will speak of Your testimonies also before kings and will not be put to shame.(A)
47 For I will delight myself in Your commandments, which I love.
48 My hands also will I lift up [in fervent supplication] to Your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on Your statutes.
10 And I [Moses] stayed on the mountain, as the first time, forty days and nights, and the Lord listened to me at that time also; the Lord would not destroy you.
11 And the Lord said to me, Arise, journey on before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I swore to their fathers to give to them.
12 And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but [reverently] to fear the Lord your God, [that is] to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your [mind and] heart and with your entire being,
13 To keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good?
14 Behold, the heavens and the heaven of heavens belong to the Lord your God, the earth also, with all that is in it and on it.
15 Yet the Lord had a delight in loving your fathers, and He chose their descendants after them, you above all peoples, as it is this day.
16 So circumcise the foreskin of your [minds and] hearts; be no longer stubborn and hardened.
17 For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, the terrible God, Who is not partial and takes no bribe.
18 He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger or temporary resident and gives him food and clothing.
19 Therefore love the stranger and sojourner, for you were strangers and sojourners in the land of Egypt.
20 You shall [reverently] fear the Lord your God; you shall serve Him and cling to Him, and by His name and presence you shall swear.
21 He is your praise; He is your God, Who has done for you these great and terrible things which your eyes have seen.
22 Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as the stars of the heavens for multitude.
14 What is the use (profit), my brethren, for anyone to profess to have faith if he has no [good] works [to show for it]? Can [such] faith save [his soul]?
15 If a brother or sister is poorly clad and lacks food for each day,
16 And one of you says to him, Good-bye! Keep [yourself] warm and well fed, without giving him the necessities for the body, what good does that do?
17 So also faith, if it does not have works (deeds and actions of obedience to back it up), by itself is destitute of power (inoperative, dead).
18 But someone will say [to you then], You [say you] have faith, and I have [good] works. Now you show me your [alleged] faith apart from any [good] works [if you can], and I by [good] works [of obedience] will show you my faith.
19 You believe that God is one; you do well. So do the demons believe and shudder [in terror and horror such as [a]make a man’s hair stand on end and contract the surface of his skin]!
20 Are you willing to be shown [proof], you foolish (unproductive, spiritually deficient) fellow, that faith apart from [good] works is inactive and ineffective and worthless?
21 Was not our forefather Abraham [shown to be] justified (made acceptable to God) by [his] works when he brought to the altar as an offering his [own] son Isaac?(A)
22 You see that [his] faith was cooperating with his works, and [his] faith was completed and reached its supreme expression [when he implemented it] by [good] works.
23 And [so] the Scripture was fulfilled that says, Abraham believed in (adhered to, trusted in, and relied on) God, and this was accounted to him as righteousness (as conformity to God’s will in thought and deed), and he was called God’s friend.(B)
24 You see that a man is justified (pronounced righteous before God) through what he does and not alone through faith [through works of obedience as well as by what he believes].
25 So also with Rahab the harlot—was she not shown to be justified (pronounced righteous before God) by [good] deeds when she took in the scouts (spies) and sent them away by a different route?(C)
26 For as the human body apart from the spirit is lifeless, so faith apart from [its] works of obedience is also dead.
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