Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
10 Rejoice with Jerusalem; be glad with her, all you who love her, you who mourned for her. 11 Delight in Jerusalem; drink deep of her glory even as an infant at a mother’s generous breasts. 12 Prosperity shall overflow Jerusalem like a river, says the Lord, for I will send it; the riches of the Gentiles will flow to her. Her children shall be nursed at her breasts, carried on her hips and dandled on her knees. 13 I will comfort you there as a little one is comforted by its mother.
14 When you see Jerusalem, your heart will rejoice; vigorous health will be yours. All the world will see the good hand of God upon his people and his wrath upon his enemies.
66 Sing to the Lord, all the earth! 2 Sing of his glorious name! Tell the world how wonderful he is.
3 How awe-inspiring are your deeds, O God! How great your power! No wonder your enemies surrender! 4 All the earth shall worship you and sing of your glories. 5 Come, see the glorious things God has done. What marvelous miracles happen to his people! 6 He made a dry road through the sea for them. They went across on foot. What excitement and joy there was that day!
7 Because of his great power he rules forever. He watches every movement of the nations. O rebel lands, he will deflate your pride.
8 Let everyone bless God and sing his praises; 9 for he holds our lives in his hands, and he holds our feet to the path.
6 Dear brothers, if a Christian is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help him back onto the right path, remembering that next time it might be one of you who is in the wrong. 2 Share each other’s troubles and problems, and so obey our Lord’s command. 3 If anyone thinks he is too great to stoop to this, he is fooling himself. He is really a nobody.
4 Let everyone be sure that he is doing his very best, for then he will have the personal satisfaction of work well done and won’t need to compare himself with someone else. 5 Each of us must bear some faults and burdens of his own. For none of us is perfect!
6 Those who are taught the Word of God should help their teachers by paying them.
7 Don’t be misled; remember that you can’t ignore God and get away with it: a man will always reap just the kind of crop he sows! 8 If he sows to please his own wrong desires, he will be planting seeds of evil and he will surely reap a harvest of spiritual decay and death; but if he plants the good things of the Spirit, he will reap the everlasting life that the Holy Spirit gives him. 9 And let us not get tired of doing what is right, for after a while we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t get discouraged and give up. 10 That’s why whenever we can we should always be kind to everyone, and especially to our Christian brothers.
11 I will write these closing words in my own handwriting. See how large I have to make the letters! 12 Those teachers of yours who are trying to convince you to be circumcised are doing it for just one reason: so that they can be popular and avoid the persecution they would get if they admitted that the cross of Christ alone can save. 13 And even those teachers who submit to circumcision don’t try to keep the other Jewish laws; but they want you to be circumcised in order that they can boast that you are their disciples.
14 As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in all the attractive things of the world was killed long ago, and the world’s interest in me is also long dead. 15 It doesn’t make any difference now whether we have been circumcised or not; what counts is whether we really have been changed into new and different people.
16 May God’s mercy and peace be upon all of you who live by this principle and upon those everywhere who are really God’s own.
10 The Lord now chose seventy other disciples and sent them on ahead in pairs to all the towns and villages he planned to visit later.
2 These were his instructions to them: “Plead with the Lord of the harvest to send out more laborers to help you, for the harvest is so plentiful and the workers so few. 3 Go now, and remember that I am sending you out as lambs among wolves. 4 Don’t take any money with you, or a beggar’s bag, or even an extra pair of shoes. And don’t waste time along the way.[a]
5 “Whenever you enter a home, give it your blessing. 6 If it is worthy of the blessing, the blessing will stand; if not, the blessing will return to you.
7 “When you enter a village, don’t shift around from home to home, but stay in one place, eating and drinking without question whatever is set before you. And don’t hesitate to accept hospitality, for the workman is worthy of his wages!
8-9 “If a town welcomes you, follow these two rules:
(1) Eat whatever is set before you.
(2) Heal the sick; and as you heal them, say, ‘The Kingdom of God is very near you now.’
10 “But if a town refuses you, go out into its streets and say, 11 ‘We wipe the dust of your town from our feet as a public announcement of your doom. Never forget how close you were to the Kingdom of God!’
16 Then he said to the disciples, “Those who welcome you are welcoming me. And those who reject you are rejecting me. And those who reject me are rejecting God who sent me.”
17 When the seventy disciples returned, they joyfully reported to him, “Even the demons obey us when we use your name.”
18 “Yes,” he told them, “I saw Satan falling from heaven as a flash of lightning! 19 And I have given you authority over all the power of the Enemy, and to walk among serpents and scorpions and to crush them. Nothing shall injure you! 20 However, the important thing is not that demons obey you, but that your names are registered as citizens of heaven.”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.