Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁹⁷ Oh, how love I Your law! It is my meditation all the day.^(A)

⁹⁸ You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies, for [Your words] are ever before me.

⁹⁹ I have better understanding and deeper insight than all my teachers, because Your testimonies are my meditation.^(B)

¹⁰⁰ I understand more than the aged, because I keep Your precepts [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying them].

¹⁰¹ I have restrained my feet from every evil way, that I might keep Your word [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying it].^(C)

¹⁰² I have not turned aside from Your ordinances, for You Yourself have taught me.

¹⁰³ How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!^(D)

¹⁰⁴ Through Your precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.

18 Now Jethro [Reuel], the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel His people, and that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt.

² Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after Moses had sent her back [to her father],

³ And her two sons, of whom the name of the one was Gershom [ expulsion, or a stranger there], for Moses said, I have been an alien in a strange land;

⁴ And the name of the other was Eliezer [God is help], for the God of my father, said Moses, was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh.

⁵ And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came with Moses’ sons and his wife to the wilderness where he was encamped at the mount of God [Horeb, or Sinai].

⁶ And he said [in a message] to Moses, I, your father-in-law Jethro, am come to you and your wife and her two sons with her.

⁷ And Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed in homage and kissed him; and each asked the other of his welfare and they came into the tent.

⁸ Moses told his father-in-law all the Lord had done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israel’s sake and all the hardships that had come upon them by the way and how the Lord delivered them.

⁹ Jethro rejoiced for all the goodness the Lord had done to Israel in that He had delivered them out of the hand of the Egyptians.

¹⁰ Jethro said, Blessed be the Lord, Who has delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians and out of the hand of Pharaoh, Who has delivered the people [Israel] from under the hand of the Egyptians.

¹¹ Now I know that the Lord is greater than all gods. Yes, in the [very] thing in which they dealt proudly [He showed Himself infinitely superior to all their gods].

¹² And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took a burnt offering and sacrifices [to offer] to God, and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat bread with Moses’ father-in-law before God.

²⁷ To whom God was pleased to make known how great for the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ within and among you, the Hope of [realizing the] glory.

²⁸ Him we preach and proclaim, warning and admonishing everyone and instructing everyone in all wisdom (^[a]comprehensive insight into the ways and purposes of God), that we may present every person mature (full-grown, fully initiated, complete, and perfect) in Christ (the Anointed One).

²⁹ For this I labor [^[b]unto weariness], striving with all the ^[c]superhuman energy which He so mightily enkindles and works within me.

2 For I want you to know how great is my solicitude for you [how severe an inward struggle I am engaged in for you] and for those [believers] at Laodicea, and for all who [^[d]like yourselves] have never seen my face and known me personally.

² [For my concern is] that their hearts may be ^[e]braced (comforted, cheered, and encouraged) as they are knit together in love, that they may come to have all the abounding wealth and blessings of assured conviction of understanding, and that they may become progressively ^[f]more intimately acquainted with and may know more definitely and accurately and thoroughly that mystic secret of God, [which is] Christ (the Anointed One).

³ In Him all the treasures of [divine] wisdom (^[g]comprehensive insight into the ways and purposes of God) and [all the riches of spiritual] knowledge and enlightenment are stored up and lie hidden.

⁴ I say this in order that no one may mislead and delude you by plausible and persuasive and attractive arguments and beguiling speech.

⁵ For though I am away from you in body, yet I am with you in spirit, delighted at the sight of your [standing shoulder to shoulder in such] orderly array and the firmness and the solid front and steadfastness of your faith in Christ [that ^[h]leaning of the entire human personality on Him in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness].

⁶ As you have therefore received Christ, [even] Jesus the Lord, [so] walk (regulate your lives and conduct yourselves) in union with and conformity to Him.

⁷ Have the roots [of your being] firmly and deeply planted [in Him, fixed and founded in Him], being continually built up in Him, becoming increasingly more confirmed and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and abounding and overflowing in it with thanksgiving.