Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
David wrote this prayer.
God will help me
16 Please keep me safe, God,
because I come to you for help.
2 I have said to the Lord,
‘You are my Lord.
All the good things that I have in my life
are gifts from you.’
3 When I think about your own people who live in this land,
it makes me happy!
They are truly great people!
4 But many troubles will come
to people who choose to worship other gods.
I will not join with them
to offer gifts of blood to their gods.
I will never use the names of their gods
to make promises.
5 You, Lord, are all that I need.
What you give to me is enough,
for me and for my descendants.
6 Yes, you have given to me a good way of life.
Your gifts are better than good fields
or valuable land.
7 I will praise the Lord,
who is my guide through life.
In the dark nights,
you help me to learn what is right.
8 I will always trust the Lord to be with me.
He is very near to me,
so I will not be upset.
9 I am truly happy and I thank God.
I know that my life is safe with God.
10 You, Lord, will not leave me
in the deep hole of death.
As one who belongs to you,
you will not leave my body to spoil in the grave.
11 You will lead me along the path of life.
Because you are with me,
I am very happy.
I know that I will be with you for ever,
and that makes me very happy!
22 When Aaron had finished burning the gifts, he lifted up his hands over the people. He had sacrificed the sin offering, the burnt offering and the friendship offering. Then he asked God to do good things for the people. And Aaron came down from the altar.
23 Moses and Aaron went into the Tent of Meeting. When they came out, they asked God to do good things for the people. The bright light from the Lord appeared to the people to show how great he is. 24 Then the Lord sent a fire to show that he accepted the gifts.[a] It completely burnt all the fat and the offerings that were on the altar. The people were very happy when they saw this. They shouted and they fell down with their faces to the ground.
The Lord kills Nadab and Abihu
10 Nadab and Abihu were sons of Aaron.[b] They put hot material in the pots that they used to burn incense. They threw incense over the hot material. They offered the incense to the Lord. This was a wrong thing to do. The Lord had not told them that they should do it. So it was wrong. 2 The Lord was angry and he sent fire to burn them. They died there in front of the Lord's altar. 3 Then Moses said to Aaron, ‘This is what the Lord said,
“People may come near to me. But those people must see that I am holy.
All the people must give honour to me.” ’
Aaron did not reply.
4 Mishael and Elzaphan were sons of Aaron's father's brother, Uzziel. Moses said to them, ‘Carry Nadab and Abihu away from the altar. Take your cousins outside the camp.’ 5 Nadab and Abihu were still wearing their robes. Mishael and Elzaphan carried Nadab and Abihu outside the camp. Moses had told them that they must do that.
6 Moses said to Aaron and to his sons, ‘Comb your hair. Do not tear your clothes. If you do that, you will die. And the Lord will be angry with all the people. But Israel's people can show that they are sad. They are sad because the Lord has killed Nadab and Abihu with fire. 7 If you go away from the door of the Tent of Meeting you will die. You will die because the Lord's holy oil is on you.’ So Aaron and his sons did as Moses had said.
8 The Lord then said to Aaron, 9 ‘Do not drink wine before you go into the Tent of Meeting. And do not drink anything that contains alcohol. If you do, you will die. This rule is for you and for all your sons and grandsons. 10 You must know what is holy. And you must know what is not holy. You must know what you can use. And you must know what you must not use to worship me. 11 You must teach Israel's people all the rules that I, the Lord, gave to them by Moses.’
5 Think carefully about how you are living. Are you really believing the message about Christ? I hope you know that Jesus Christ is in you. You ought to know that, unless you have completely failed. 6 I hope that you will know that we ourselves have not failed. We do belong to Christ, as you do.
7 Now we pray to God that you will not do any wrong things. We do not pray this to show that God has accepted us as good. We pray like that because we want you to do what is right. We want that, even if we ourselves seem to have failed. 8 We can only work to show what is true. We cannot do anything against what is true. 9 We are happy when we seem to be weak, if you become strong as a result. We pray that you will become completely as you should be.
10 That is why I am writing these things to you now, while I am away from you. Then, when I arrive, I will not need to be angry with you. I will not have to use my authority to punish you. The Lord gave that authority to me to help you to become stronger as believers. He did not give it to me so that I could destroy you.
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