Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

115 Glorify your name, not ours, O Lord! Cause everyone to praise your loving-kindness and your truth. ² Why let the nations say, “Their God is dead!”^[a]

³ For he is in the heavens and does as he wishes. ⁴ Their gods are merely man-made things of silver and of gold. ⁵ They can’t talk or see, despite their eyes and mouths! ⁶ Nor can they hear, nor smell, ⁷ nor use their hands or feet, nor speak! ⁸ And those who make and worship them are just as foolish as their idols are.

⁹ O Israel, trust the Lord! He is your helper. He is your shield. ¹⁰ O priests of Aaron, trust the Lord! He is your helper; he is your shield. ¹¹ All of you, his people, trust in him. He is your helper; he is your shield.

¹² Jehovah is constantly thinking about us, and he will surely bless us. He will bless the people of Israel and the priests of Aaron, ¹³ and all, both great and small, who reverence him.

¹⁴ May the Lord richly bless both you and your children. ¹⁵ Yes, Jehovah who made heaven and earth will personally bless you! ¹⁶ The heavens belong to the Lord, but he has given the earth to all mankind.

¹⁷ The dead cannot sing praises to Jehovah here on earth,^{[b] 18} but we can! We praise him forever! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!

^5-6 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Now set apart the Levites from the other people of Israel. ⁷ Do this by sprinkling water of purification upon them, then having them shave their entire bodies and wash their clothing and themselves. ⁸ Have them bring a young bull and a grain offering of fine flour mingled with oil, along with another young bull for a sin offering. ⁹ Then bring the Levites to the door of the Tabernacle as all the people watch. ¹⁰ There the leaders^[a] of the tribes shall lay their hands upon them, ¹¹ and Aaron, with a gesture of offering, shall present them to the Lord as a gift from the entire nation of Israel. The Levites will represent all the people in serving the Lord.

¹² “Next, the Levite leaders shall lay their hands upon the heads of the young bulls and offer them before the Lord; one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering, to make atonement for the Levites. ¹³ Then the Levites are to be presented to Aaron and his sons, just as any other gift to the Lord is given to the priests! ¹⁴ In this way you will dedicate the Levites from among the rest of the people of Israel, and the Levites shall be mine. ¹⁵ After you have sanctified them and presented them in this way, they shall go in and out of the Tabernacle to do their work.

¹⁶ “They are mine from among all the people of Israel, and I have accepted them in place of all the firstborn children of the Israelites: I have taken the Levites as their substitutes. ¹⁷ For all the firstborn among the people of Israel are mine, both men and animals; I claimed them for myself the night I killed all the firstborn Egyptians. ¹⁸ Yes, I have accepted the Levites in place of all the eldest sons of Israel. ¹⁹ And I will give the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons. The Levites will carry out the sacred duties required of the people of Israel in the Tabernacle, and will offer the people’s sacrifices, making atonement for them. There will be no plague among the Israelites—as there would be if the ordinary people entered the Tabernacle.”

²⁰ So Moses and Aaron and all the people of Israel dedicated the Levites, carefully following Jehovah’s instructions to Moses. ²¹ The Levites purified themselves and washed their clothes, and Aaron presented them to the Lord in a gesture of offering. He then performed the rite of atonement over them to purify them. ²² After that they went into the Tabernacle as assistants to Aaron and his sons; everything was done just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

1 ^1-2 From: Paul, the slave of God and the messenger of Jesus Christ.

I have been sent to bring faith to those God has chosen and to teach them to know God’s truth—the kind of truth that changes lives—so that they can have eternal life, which God promised them before the world began—and he cannot lie. ³ And now in his own good time he has revealed this Good News and permits me to tell it to everyone. By command of God our Savior, I have been trusted to do this work for him.

⁴ To: Titus, who is truly my son in the affairs of the Lord.

May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Savior give you his blessings and his peace.

⁵ I left you there on the island of Crete so that you could do whatever was needed to help strengthen each of its churches, and I asked you to appoint pastors^[a] in every city who would follow the instructions I gave you. ⁶ The men you choose must be well thought of for their good lives; they must have only one wife and their children must love the Lord and not have a reputation for being wild or disobedient to their parents.

⁷ These pastors must be men of blameless lives because they are God’s ministers. They must not be proud or impatient; they must not be drunkards or fighters or greedy for money. ⁸ They must enjoy having guests in their homes and must love all that is good. They must be sensible men, and fair. They must be clean minded and level headed. ⁹ Their belief in the truth that they have been taught must be strong and steadfast so that they will be able to teach it to others and show those who disagree with them where they are wrong.