Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
21 But my Sovereign Lord, help me as you have promised,
and rescue me because of the goodness of your love.
22 I am poor and needy;
I am hurt to the depths of my heart.
23 Like an evening shadow I am about to vanish;
I am blown away like an insect.
24 My knees are weak from lack of food;
I am nothing but skin and bones.
25 (A)When people see me, they laugh at me;
they shake their heads in scorn.
26 Help me, O Lord my God;
because of your constant love, save me!
27 Make my enemies know
that you are the one who saves me.
28 They may curse me, but you will bless me.
May my persecutors be defeated,[a]
and may I, your servant, be glad.
29 May my enemies be covered with disgrace;
may they wear their shame like a robe.
30 I will give loud thanks to the Lord;
I will praise him in the assembly of the people,
31 because he defends the poor
and saves them from those who condemn them to death.
The Lord's Will and Human Defiance
20 It was the tenth day of the fifth month of the seventh year of our exile. Some of the leaders of the Israelite community came to consult me about the Lord's will, and they sat down in front of me. 2 Then the Lord spoke to me. 3 “Mortal man,” he said, “speak to these leaders and tell them that the Sovereign Lord is saying: You have come to ask my will, have you? As surely as I am the living God, I will not let you ask me anything. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.
4 “Are you ready to pass sentence on them, mortal man? Then do so. Remind them of the disgusting things their ancestors did. 5 (A)Tell them what I am saying. When I chose Israel, I made them a promise. I revealed myself to them in Egypt and told them: I am the Lord your God. 6 It was then that I promised to take them out of Egypt and lead them to a land I had chosen for them, a rich and fertile land, the finest land of all. 7 I told them to throw away the disgusting idols they loved and not to make themselves unclean with the false gods of Egypt, because I am the Lord their God. 8 But they defied me and refused to listen. They did not throw away their disgusting idols or give up the Egyptian gods. I was ready to let them feel the full force of my anger there in Egypt. 9 But I did not, since that would have brought dishonor to my name, for in the presence of the people among whom they were living I had announced to Israel that I was going to lead them out of Egypt.
10 “And so I led them out of Egypt into the desert. 11 (B)I gave them my commands and taught them my laws, which bring life to anyone who obeys them. 12 (C)I made the keeping of the Sabbath a sign of the agreement between us, to remind them that I, the Lord, make them holy. 13 But even in the desert they defied me. They broke my laws and rejected my commands, which bring life to anyone who obeys them. They completely profaned the Sabbath. I was ready to let them feel the force of my anger there in the desert and to destroy them. 14 But I did not, since that would have brought dishonor to my name among the nations which had seen me lead Israel out of Egypt. 15 (D)So I made a vow in the desert that I would not take them to the land I had given them, a rich and fertile land, the finest land of all. 16 I made the vow because they had rejected my commands, broken my laws, and profaned the Sabbath—they preferred to worship their idols.
17 “But then I took pity on them. I decided not to kill them there in the desert.
A Rest for God's People
7 (A)So then, as the Holy Spirit says,
“If you hear God's voice today,
8 do not be stubborn, as your ancestors were when they rebelled against God,
as they were that day in the desert when they put him to the test.
9 There they put me to the test and tried me, says God,
although they had seen what I did for forty years.
10 And so I was angry with those people and said,
‘They are always disloyal
and refuse to obey my commands.’
11 I was angry and made a solemn promise:
‘They will never enter the land where I would have given them rest!’”
12 My friends, be careful that none of you have a heart so evil and unbelieving that you will turn away from the living God. 13 Instead, in order that none of you be deceived by sin and become stubborn, you must help one another every day, as long as the word “Today” in the scripture applies to us. 14 For we are all partners with Christ if we hold firmly to the end the confidence we had at the beginning.
15 (B)This is what the scripture says:
“If you hear God's voice today,
do not be stubborn, as your ancestors were
when they rebelled against God.”
16 (C)Who were the people who heard God's voice and rebelled against him? All those who were led out of Egypt by Moses. 17 With whom was God angry for forty years? With the people who sinned, who fell down dead in the desert. 18 When God made his solemn promise, “They will never enter the land where I would have given them rest”—of whom was he speaking? Of those who rebelled. 19 We see, then, that they were not able to enter the land, because they did not believe.
4 Now, God has offered us the promise that we may receive that rest he spoke about. Let us take care, then, that none of you will be found to have failed to receive that promised rest. 2 For we have heard the Good News, just as they did. They heard the message, but it did them no good, because when they heard it, they did not accept it with faith. 3 (D)We who believe, then, do receive that rest which God promised. It is just as he said,
“I was angry and made a solemn promise:
‘They will never enter the land where I would have given them rest!’”
He said this even though his work had been finished from the time he created the world.
4 (E)For somewhere in the Scriptures this is said about the seventh day: “God rested on the seventh day from all his work.” 5 (F)This same matter is spoken of again: “They will never enter that land where I would have given them rest.” 6 Those who first heard the Good News did not receive that rest, because they did not believe. There are, then, others who are allowed to receive it. 7 (G)This is shown by the fact that God sets another day, which is called “Today.” Many years later he spoke of it through David in the scripture already quoted:
“If you hear God's voice today,
do not be stubborn.”
8 (H)If Joshua had given the people the rest that God had promised, God would not have spoken later about another day. 9 As it is, however, there still remains for God's people a rest like God's resting on the seventh day. 10 (I)For those who receive that rest which God promised will rest from their own work, just as God rested from his. 11 Let us, then, do our best to receive that rest, so that no one of us will fail as they did because of their lack of faith.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.