Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 105

¹ O give thanks unto the Lord, call upon His name, make known His doings among the peoples!

² Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; meditate on and talk of all His marvelous deeds and devoutly praise them.

³ Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those rejoice who seek and require the Lord [as their indispensable necessity].

⁴ Seek, inquire of and for the Lord, and crave Him and His strength (His might and inflexibility to temptation); seek and require His face and His presence [continually] evermore.

⁵ [Earnestly] remember the marvelous deeds that He has done, His miracles and wonders, the judgments and sentences which He pronounced [upon His enemies, as in Egypt].^(A)

⁶ O you offspring of Abraham His servant, you children of Jacob, His chosen ones,

⁷ He is the Lord our God; His judgments are in all the earth.

⁸ He is [earnestly] mindful of His covenant and forever it is imprinted on His heart, the word which He commanded and established to a thousand generations,

⁹ The covenant which He made with Abraham, and His sworn promise to Isaac,^(B)

¹⁰ Which He confirmed to Jacob as a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant,

¹¹ Saying, Unto you will I give the land of Canaan as your measured portion, possession, and inheritance.

¹² When they were but a few men in number, in fact, very few, and were temporary residents and strangers in it,

¹³ When they went from one nation to another, from one kingdom to another people,

¹⁴ He allowed no man to do them wrong; in fact, He reproved kings for their sakes,^(C)

¹⁵ Saying, Touch not My anointed, and do My prophets no harm.^(D)

¹⁶ Moreover, He called for a famine upon the land [of Egypt]; He cut off every source of bread.^(A)

¹⁷ He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold as a servant.^(B)

¹⁸ His feet they hurt with fetters; he was laid in chains of iron and his soul entered into the iron,

¹⁹ Until his word [to his cruel brothers] came true, until the word of the Lord tried and tested him.

²⁰ The king sent and loosed him, even the ruler of the peoples, and let him go free.

²¹ He made Joseph lord of his house and ruler of all his substance,^(C)

²² To bind his princes at his pleasure and teach his elders wisdom.

²³ Israel also came into Egypt; and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.^(D)

²⁴ There [the Lord] greatly increased His people and made them stronger than their oppressors.

²⁵ He turned the hearts [of the Egyptians] to hate His people, to deal craftily with His servants.

²⁶ He sent Moses His servant, and Aaron, whom He had chosen.

²⁷ They showed His signs among them, wonders and miracles in the land of Ham (Egypt).

²⁸ He sent [thick] darkness and made the land dark, and they [God’s two servants] rebelled not against His word.^(E)

²⁹ He turned [Egypt’s] waters into blood and caused their fish to die.^(F)

³⁰ Their land brought forth frogs in abundance, even in the chambers of their kings.^(G)

³¹ He spoke, and there came swarms of beetles and flies and mosquitoes and lice in all their borders.^(H)

³² He gave them hail for rain, with lightning like flaming fire in their land.^(I)

³³ He smote their vines also and their fig trees and broke the [ice-laden] trees of their borders.^(J)

³⁴ He spoke, and the locusts came, and the grasshoppers, and that without number,^(K)

³⁵ And ate up all the vegetation in their land and devoured the fruit of their ground.

³⁶ He smote also all the firstborn in their land, the beginning and chief substance of all their strength.^(L)

³⁷ He brought [Israel] forth also with silver and gold, and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.^(M)

³⁸ Egypt was glad when they departed, for the fear of them had fallen upon the people.^(N)

³⁹ The Lord spread a cloud for a covering [by day], and a fire to give light in the night.^(O)

⁴⁰ [The Israelites] asked, and He brought quails and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.^(P)

⁴¹ He opened the rock, and water gushed out; it ran in the dry places like a river.^(Q)

⁴² For He [earnestly] remembered His holy word and promise to Abraham His servant.^(A)

¹⁰ But all the congregation said to stone [Joshua and Caleb] with stones. But the glory of the Lord appeared at the Tent of Meeting before all the Israelites.

¹¹ And the Lord said to Moses, How long will this people provoke (spurn, despise) Me? And how long will it be before they believe Me [trusting in, relying on, clinging to Me], for all the signs which I have performed among them?

¹² I will smite them with the pestilence and disinherit them, and will make of you [Moses] a nation greater and mightier than they.

¹³ But Moses said to the Lord, Then the Egyptians will hear of it, for You brought up this people in Your might from among them.

¹⁴ And they will tell it to the inhabitants of this land. They have heard that You, Lord, are in the midst of this people [of Israel], that You, Lord, are seen face to face, and that Your cloud stands over them, and that You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.

¹⁵ Now if You kill all this people as one man, then the nations that have heard Your fame will say,

¹⁶ Because the Lord was not able to bring this people into the land which He swore to give to them, therefore He has slain them in the wilderness.

¹⁷ And now, I pray You, let the power of my Lord be great, as You have promised, saying,

¹⁸ The Lord is long-suffering and slow to anger, and abundant in mercy and loving-kindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and fourth generation.^(A)

¹⁹ Pardon, I pray You, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Your mercy and loving-kindness, just as You have forgiven [them] from Egypt until now.

²⁰ And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to your word.

²¹ But truly as I live and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord,^(B)

²² Because all those men who have seen My glory and My [miraculous] signs which I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tested and proved Me these ten times and have not heeded My voice,

²³ Surely they shall not see the land which I swore to give to their fathers; nor shall any who provoked (spurned, despised) Me see it.^(C)

²⁴ But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.

10 For I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, that our forefathers were all under and protected by the cloud [in which God’s Presence went before them], and every one of them passed safely through the [Red] Sea,^(A)

² And each one of them [allowed himself also] to be baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea [they were thus brought under obligation to the Law, to Moses, and to the covenant, consecrated and set apart to the service of God];

³ And all [of them] ate the same spiritual (supernaturally given) food,^(B)

⁴ And they all drank the same spiritual (supernaturally given) drink. For they drank from a spiritual Rock which followed them [produced by the sole power of God Himself without natural instrumentality], and the Rock was Christ.^(C)

⁵ Nevertheless, God was not pleased with the great majority of them, for they were overthrown and strewn down along [the ground] in the wilderness.^(D)

⁶ Now these things are examples (warnings and admonitions) for us not to desire or crave or covet or lust after evil and carnal things as they did.^(E)

⁷ Do not be worshipers of false gods as some of them were, as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink [the sacrifices offered to the golden calf at Horeb] and rose to sport (to dance and give way to jesting and hilarity).^(F)

⁸ We must not gratify evil desire and indulge in immorality as some of them did—and twenty-three thousand [suddenly] fell dead in a single day!^(G)

⁹ We should not tempt the Lord [try His patience, become a trial to Him, critically appraise Him, and exploit His goodness] as some of them did—and were killed by poisonous serpents;^(H)

¹⁰ Nor discontentedly complain as some of them did—and were ^[a]put out of the way entirely by the destroyer (death).^(I)

¹¹ Now these things befell them by way of a figure [as an example and warning to us]; they were written to admonish and fit us for right action by good instruction, we in whose days the ages have reached their climax (their consummation and concluding period).

¹² Therefore let anyone who thinks he stands [who feels sure that he has a steadfast mind and is standing firm], take heed lest he fall [into sin].

¹³ For no temptation (no trial regarded as enticing to sin), [no matter how it comes or where it leads] has overtaken you and laid hold on you that is not common to man [that is, no temptation or trial has come to you that is beyond human resistance and that is not ^[b]adjusted and ^[c]adapted and belonging to human experience, and such as man can bear]. But God is faithful [to His Word and to His compassionate nature], and He [can be trusted] not to let you be tempted and tried and assayed beyond your ability and strength of resistance and power to endure, but with the temptation He will [always] also provide the way out (the means of escape to ^[d]a landing place), that you may be capable and strong and powerful to bear up under it patiently.