Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 31^(A)

For the Music Director. A Psalm of David.

Moses at the Burning Bush

3 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to the mountain of God, to Horeb. ² The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush, and he looked, and the bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed. ³ So Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.”

⁴ When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him from out of the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses.”

And he said, “Here am I.”

⁵ He said, “Do not approach here. Remove your sandals from off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶ Moreover He said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God.

⁷ The Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. ⁸ Therefore, I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. ⁹ Now therefore, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me. Moreover, I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. ¹⁰ Come now therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh so that you may bring forth My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

¹¹ Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

¹² And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this will be a sign to you, that I have sent you: When you have brought forth the people out of Egypt, all of you shall serve God on this mountain.”

Stephen’s Speech

7 Then the high priest said, “Are these things so?”

² He said, “Brothers and fathers, listen! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran, ³ and said to him, ‘Leave your country and your relatives, and come to the land which I will show you.’^[a]

⁴ “Then he departed from the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Harran. When his father died, He removed him from there to this land in which you now live. ⁵ He gave him no inheritance in it, nor a foothold, and promised to give it to him as a possession and to his descendants after him while he had no child. ⁶ God spoke in this way, ‘Your descendants shall be sojourners in a land belonging to others, who will enslave them and mistreat them four hundred years.^{[b] 7} And I will judge the nation to whom they will be enslaved,’^[c] said God. ‘After that they shall come out and worship Me in this place.’^{[d] 8} Then He gave him the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. And Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

⁹ “The patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him, ¹⁰ and delivered him out of all his afflictions, and gave him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who appointed him governor over Egypt and all his house.

¹¹ “Then a famine came over all Egypt and Canaan with great affliction, and our fathers found no sustenance. ¹² But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers the first time. ¹³ During the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh. ¹⁴ Then Joseph sent and called for his father Jacob and all his kindred, seventy-five souls. ¹⁵ Then Jacob went down into Egypt. And he and our fathers died, ¹⁶ and were carried to Shechem and put in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a price of silver from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem.