Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁴ Some foreign people were travelling with the Israelites.^[a] Those people wanted very much to eat better food. So the Israelites wept again. They said, ‘We want meat to eat! ⁵ We remember the fish that we ate in Egypt. We had as much as we wanted. And we remember all the nice vegetables, cucumbers, leeks, onions and garlic. And we remember the melons. ⁶ But now our mouths are dry and we do not want to eat this food. There is not even anything to look at, except this manna.’

¹⁰ People in every family were crying at the doors of their tents. And Moses heard them. The Lord became very angry with the people. Moses too was not happy. ¹¹ So Moses said to the Lord, ‘I am your servant. But you have given this problem to me! It seems that you are not pleased with me. You have given to me the hard job to be leader of all these people. ¹² They are not my children! But you have said to me, “Take care of them like parents take care of their babies. Carry them to the land that I have promised to their ancestors.” ¹³ They are complaining to me. They are saying, “Give us meat that we can eat!” But I cannot get meat to feed all these people! ¹⁴ I cannot be the leader of all these people unless I receive help. This job is too difficult for me. ¹⁵ So if you do not want to help me, please kill me now. I do not want to continue to be so upset. So please be kind to me.’

¹⁶ So the Lord said to Moses, ‘Choose 70 leaders of the Israelites and bring them to the Tent of Meeting. You must know that they are leaders and officers that the people respect. Bring them to stand there with you.

²⁴ So Moses went out from God's Tent and he told the people the Lord's message. He chose 70 leaders of the Israelites and he put them round the Tent. ²⁵ Then the Lord came down in the cloud to speak to them. He took some of the authority of his Spirit that he had given to Moses. And he shared it with the 70 leaders. While God's Spirit stayed on them, they prophesied. But they did not do it again after that.

²⁶ But two men had stayed in the camp. Their names were Eldad and Medad. They were among the men that Moses had chosen. But they had not gone to meet with God in the special Tent. God's Spirit also came on them. So they prophesied in the camp. ²⁷ A young man ran to Moses and he said, ‘Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.’

²⁸ Nun's son Joshua was there. Since he was a boy, he had been Moses' servant. Joshua said to Moses, ‘Moses, my master, stop them.’

²⁹ But Moses said to him, ‘Perhaps you think that I might be jealous of them. But I would be happy if the Lord would give his Spirit to all his people. I would like them all to be prophets!’

Prayer

¹³ Is anyone among you in trouble? Then they should pray to God about it. Or, is anyone feeling happy? They should praise God with songs. ¹⁴ Is anyone ill? They should ask the leaders of the church to come and to pray for them. The leaders should put some olive oil on the sick person. They should pray for him with the authority of the Lord Jesus. ¹⁵ If they pray in that way and they trust that God will answer them, the sick person will become well again. The Lord will cause him to become well. And God will forgive him if he has done any wrong things.

¹⁶ So you should tell each other about any wrong things that you have done. Then you will be able to pray for each other, so that God makes you well again. When a good person prays to God, God does powerful things. ¹⁷ For example, God's prophet Elijah was an ordinary person, as we are. He prayed to God that it would not rain. He continued to pray and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. ¹⁸ After that time, he prayed to God to send rain again. After that, rain came down from the sky. The seeds that were in the ground began to grow and give food for people to eat.

¹⁹ My Christian friends, if anyone among you turns away from God's true message, you should help him. Try to bring him back to God. ²⁰ Understand this: if you turn a person back from their bad ways, you will save them from death. And God will forgive that person for his many sins.

³⁸ John said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, we saw a man who was causing bad spirits to go out of people. He was using your authority to do it. But he is not in our group. So we told him that he must not do it.’

³⁹ ‘Do not tell him to stop,’ Jesus said. ‘That man is using my authority to do powerful things. Someone who does that cannot immediately say anything bad about me. ⁴⁰ If someone is not against us, he is working to help us. ⁴¹ Somebody may give you a cup of water because you are a servant of the Messiah. I tell you this: God will bless that person and he will never lose God's help.

⁴² A person who believes in me may not seem important. But you should never make that person do wrong things. Do not do that! It would be better if someone tied a big stone around your neck and then he threw you into the sea!

^43-44 If your hand causes you to do wrong things, you should cut it off.^[a] You will only have one hand, but you can have God's true life. It will be much worse for you if you keep both your hands and go to hell. There, the fire always burns and never stops. ^45-46 If your foot causes you to do wrong things, you should cut it off. You will only have one foot, but you can have God's true life. It will be much worse if you keep your two feet and go to hell. ⁴⁷ If your eye causes you to do wrong things, then you should remove it. Then you will only have one eye, but you can go into the kingdom of God. It will be much worse if you keep both your eyes and God throws you into hell.

⁴⁹ God will put fire on everybody, as people put salt on food.^{[d] 50} Salt is good. But if your salt is not salty any more, you cannot make it salty again. You should be like good salt and love each other. Do not cause trouble among yourselves.’