Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
Psalm 95[a]
A Call to Praise and Obedience
I
1 Come, let us sing joyfully to the Lord;
cry out to the rock of our salvation.(A)
2 Let us come before him with a song of praise,
joyfully sing out our psalms.
3 For the Lord is the great God,
the great king over all gods,(B)
4 Whose hand holds the depths of the earth;
who owns the tops of the mountains.
5 The sea and dry land belong to God,
who made them, formed them by hand.(C)
II
6 Enter, let us bow down in worship;
let us kneel before the Lord who made us.
7 For he is our God,
we are the people he shepherds,
the sheep in his hands.(D)
III
Oh, that today you would hear his voice:(E)
8 Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah,
as on the day of Massah in the desert.[b]
9 There your ancestors tested me;
they tried me though they had seen my works.(F)
10 Forty years I loathed that generation;
I said: “This people’s heart goes astray;
they do not know my ways.”(G)
11 Therefore I swore in my anger:
“They shall never enter my rest.”[c]
Chapter 16
The Wilderness of Sin. 1 Having set out from Elim, the whole Israelite community came into the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month[a] after their departure from the land of Egypt. 2 Here in the wilderness the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died at the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our kettles of meat and ate our fill of bread! But you have led us into this wilderness to make this whole assembly die of famine!”
The Quail and the Manna. 4 Then the Lord said to Moses:(A) I am going to rain down bread from heaven[b] for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion; thus will I test them, to see whether they follow my instructions or not. 5 On the sixth day, however, when they prepare what they bring in, let it be twice as much as they gather on the other days. 6 So Moses and Aaron told all the Israelites,(B) “At evening you will know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt; 7 and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, when he hears your grumbling against him. But who are we that you should grumble against us?” 8 And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening and in the morning your fill of bread, and hears the grumbling you utter against him, who then are we? Your grumbling is not against us, but against the Lord.”
II. The Preeminence of Christ
His Person and Work
15 [a]He is the image[b] of the invisible God,
the firstborn of all creation.(A)
16 For in him[c] were created all things in heaven and on earth,
the visible and the invisible,
whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers;
all things were created through him and for him.(B)
17 He is before all things,
and in him all things hold together.
18 He is the head of the body, the church.[d]
He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead,
that in all things he himself might be preeminent.(C)
19 For in him all the fullness[e] was pleased to dwell,
20 and through him to reconcile all things for him,
making peace by the blood of his cross[f]
[through him], whether those on earth or those in heaven.(D)
21 [g]And you who once were alienated and hostile in mind because of evil deeds(E) 22 he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through his death, to present you holy, without blemish, and irreproachable before him, 23 provided that you persevere in the faith, firmly grounded, stable, and not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, am a minister.
Christ in Us.[h]
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.