Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
The 1st Hallelujah Psalm[a]
146 Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
I say to myself, ‘Praise the Lord!’
2 I will praise the Lord through all my life.
While I am alive, I will always sing to praise my God.
3 Do not trust in human leaders.
No human can save you.
4 When they die, they return to the ground.
On that day, their plans come to an end.
5 The person who knows that the God of Jacob will help him is a happy person![b]
If he trusts in the Lord as his God, he is happy.
6 The Lord made the skies, the earth and the sea.
He also made everything that is in them.
He always does what he has promised to do.
7 He helps poor people to receive justice.
He gives food to the hungry.
He makes people that are in a prison go free.
8 The Lord makes blind people see again.
The Lord lifts up people who have fallen down.
The Lord loves people who are righteous.
9 The Lord takes care of strangers who live among us.
He helps widows and children who have no family.
But he stops wicked people doing what they want.
10 The Lord will rule as king for ever!
Zion's people, he will always be your God
and your descendants' God.
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
The year to forgive debts
15 At the end of every seven years you must remove the debts of people that you have lent money to. 2 This is how you must do it:
Every person who has lent money to someone must remove that debt. He must not demand to get his money back from any other Israelite. It is the Lord's time to remove debts. 3 You can demand to get your money back from a foreign person. But if you have lent money to another Israelite, you must forgive the debt.
4 The Lord will bless you in the land that he is giving you to live in. So there should be no poor people among you. 5 But you must always obey him completely. So be careful to obey all the commands that I am giving to you today. 6 For the Lord your God will bless you, as he has promised to do. You will lend money to the people of many other nations, but you will not borrow money from them. You will rule over many other nations, but they will not rule over you.
7 The Lord your God will bless you in the land that he is giving to you. But perhaps there will be a poor person among the Israelites in one of your towns. Then do not refuse to help him. Do not think only about yourself. 8 Instead, be generous.[a] Lend him the money that he needs.
9 Be careful not to think this wicked thought: ‘The seventh year will happen soon. That is the year when I must forgive people's debts. So I will not lend money to people at this time.’ Do not be cruel like that to another Israelite who is poor. Do not refuse to lend him anything. He might complain about you to the Lord. Then the Lord would say that you are guilty of a sin. 10 Instead, you should certainly lend money to him. Do not feel upset about it. If you are generous, the Lord your God will bless you in everything that you do.
11 There will always be some poor people among you in the land where you are going. So I command you to be generous to other Israelites who are poor. Help them with the things that they need.
15 So, by Christ's death, God brings a new agreement between him and his people. God's people receive from him the good things that will be with them for ever. God has promised to give those things to the people that he has chosen. Christ's death has made them free from their sins. God will no longer punish them like the first agreement says should happen.
16 Think about this. A person may make an agreement about who will receive his things after his death. But nobody receives anything until it is clear that the person has really died. 17 The agreement only has authority after the death of the person who made it. It has no authority while that person is still alive.
18 So even God's first agreement with his people needed the blood of an animal. The agreement only had authority after a death. 19 It was like this. Moses read God's laws aloud to all Israel's people. He told them every rule that God had given them. After that, Moses killed some young cows and goats. He took some of their blood and he mixed it with water. He threw some of the blood to drop onto the book of God's laws. He also caused some to drop onto all the people. He used red sheep's hair and some small branches of a plant called hyssop to throw the blood and water. 20 When Moses did this, he said to the people, ‘This blood shows that God's agreement with you has authority.’ 21 In the same way, Moses threw some of the blood onto the tabernacle. He also caused blood to drop onto all the things that the priests used to serve God there.[a] 22 God's Law taught that blood was necessary to make almost everything clean. We see that God does not forgive people for their sins unless there is blood from a death.
Christ's sacrifice on the cross
23 The tabernacle and the things that were in it needed animals' blood to make them clean. That was a picture of the true place in heaven where people worship God. But the true things in heaven need better sacrifices to make them clean than the sacrifices of animals. 24 Christ did not go into a holy place that people had made on earth. A place like that is only a picture of the true place in heaven. No, Christ went into heaven itself, where God is. Now he is there with God and he speaks to God on our behalf.
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