Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
David wrote this song.
How may we worship God?
15 Lord, who may stay with you,
in your own home?
Who may live there,
on your holy hill?[a]
2 It is the person who does only things that are right.
It is the person who lives in a completely good way,
and who speaks only what he knows is true.
3 He says nothing bad against other people.
He does nothing that will hurt his friends,
nor does he insult them.
4 He does not respect wicked people,
but he does respect people who serve the Lord.
When he promises to do something,
he always does it.
5 He lends his money to help other people,
and he does not ask for more money in return.
He does not accept a bribe,
to speak against people who have done nothing wrong.
People who live in this way will always be safe.
8 Then Moses quickly bent down low to worship the Lord. 9 He said, ‘Lord, my God, if you are pleased with me, please travel with us! It is true that these people are proud and they often do not obey you. But please forgive all our sins. Please accept us as your own people.’
10 Then the Lord said, ‘I will make a covenant with the Israelites. I will do great miracles for them to see. Nobody in any nation anywhere in the world has ever done such great things. All the people who live near you will see the great things that I, the Lord, will do. The powerful things that I do among you will make them very afraid.
11 Obey the commands that I am giving you today. Then I will chase out the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as you move into the land. 12 Do not make any agreements with those people in the land where you are going. If you become their friends, they would teach you to do wrong things. 13 Instead, you must knock down their altars. Destroy the special stones that are their idols. Cut down their Asherah poles. 14 Do not worship any other god instead of me. I am the Lord and I want you to belong to me alone.
15 Be careful not to make an agreement with the people who live in that land. They have turned away to worship their own gods. They offer sacrifices to their gods. When they do that, they may ask you to join with them. Then you will eat the food that they have offered to their gods. 16 Perhaps you may choose some of their daughters for your sons to marry. Their daughters will continue to worship their gods. Then they will teach your sons to turn away from me and worship their gods.
17 Do not melt metal to make images of false gods.
18 Eat the Feast of Flat Bread every year. Eat bread that has no yeast in it for seven days, as I commanded you. Do this on the right day in the month of Abib. That is the month that you came out from Egypt.
19 Every firstborn child that a woman gives birth to belongs to me. That is also true for every firstborn male that your animals give birth to. That includes your cows and your sheep. 20 For a firstborn donkey, you may pay for it with a lamb instead. If you do not pay for it, you must break the donkey's neck. You must pay me back for every firstborn son that you have.
Nobody may come to worship me without an offering to give me.
21 You may work for six days each week, but on the seventh day you must rest. That is true even when it is the time to plough your fields. It is also true at harvest time. You must rest on the seventh day each week.
22 Eat the Feast of Weeks every year when you cut the first wheat in your fields. Eat the Feast of Harvest at the end of each year.[a] 23 Three times in every year, all your men must come to worship the Lord God, the God of Israel. 24 I will chase the nations out of the land as you move in. I will give you more and more land to live in. Three times each year you must come to worship the Lord your God. When you do that, nobody will try to take your land for themselves.
25 When you offer the blood of an animal to me as your sacrifice, do not also offer any bread with yeast in it. When you kill a lamb for the Passover sacrifice, do not keep any of the meat until the next morning.
26 When you cut the first crops from your fields, bring the best food to the house of the Lord your God.
Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.’
27 Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Write down these words. They are the rules of the covenant that I have made with you and with the Israelites.’
28 Moses was there on the mountain with the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights. He did not eat anything or drink anything during that time. He wrote the words of God's covenant on the flat stones. Those were God's ten special commands.
Pilate asks Jesus questions
28 The Jewish leaders took Jesus from Caiaphas's house to the Roman ruler's big house.[a] It was early in the morning. The Jewish leaders wanted to follow the Jewish rules so that they could eat the Passover meal. They did not go into the ruler's house, because it would have made them unclean.[b]
29 So Pilate, the Roman ruler, went outside to meet them. He asked them, ‘What wrong thing do you say that this man has done?’ 30 They replied, ‘We would not have brought him to you if he had done nothing wrong.’ 31 Pilate said to them, ‘You yourselves take him away. You should judge him by your own laws.’ The Jewish leaders replied, ‘We do not have authority to kill anyone when they have done something bad.’[c] 32 Jesus had already told people how he would die. These things happened to make his words become true.[d]
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