Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
49 Remember your promise to me, your servant;
it gives me hope.
50 When I suffer, this comforts me:
Your promise gives me life.
51 Proud people always make fun of me,
but I do not reject your teachings.
52 I remember your laws from long ago,
and they comfort me, Lord.
53 I become angry with wicked people
who do not keep your teachings.
54 I sing about your demands
wherever I live.
55 Lord, I remember you at night,
and I will obey your teachings.
56 This is what I do:
I follow your orders.
22 The Lord spoke these commands to all of you on the mountain in a loud voice out of the fire, the cloud, and the deep darkness; he did not say anything else. Then he wrote them on two stone tablets, and he gave them to me.
23 When you heard the voice from the darkness, as the mountain was blazing with fire, all the leaders of your tribes and your elders came to me. 24 And you said, “The Lord our God has shown us his glory and majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a person can live even if God speaks to him. 25 But now, we will die! This great fire will burn us up, and we will die if we hear the Lord our God speak anymore. 26 No human being has ever heard the living God speaking from a fire and still lived, but we have. 27 Moses, you go near and listen to everything the Lord our God says. Then you tell us what the Lord our God tells you, and we will listen and obey.”
28 The Lord heard what you said to me, and he said to me, “I have heard what the people said to you. Everything they said was good. 29 I wish their hearts would always respect me and that they would always obey my commands so that things would go well for them and their children forever!
30 “Go and tell the people to return to their tents, 31 but you stay here with me so that I may give you all the commands, rules, and laws that you must teach the people to obey in the land I am giving them as their own.”
32 So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you, and follow the commands exactly. 33 Live the way the Lord your God has commanded you so that you may live and have what is good and have a long life in the land you will take.
The Command to Love God
6 These are the commands, rules, and laws that the Lord your God told me to teach you to obey in the land you are crossing the Jordan River to take. 2 You, your children, and your grandchildren must respect the Lord your God as long as you live. Obey all his rules and commands I give you so that you will live a long time. 3 Listen, Israel, and carefully obey these laws. Then all will go well for you, and you will become a great nation in a fertile land, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you.
17 If anyone belongs to Christ, there is a new creation. The old things have gone; everything is made new! 18 All this is from God. Through Christ, God made peace between us and himself, and God gave us the work of telling everyone about the peace we can have with him. 19 God was in Christ, making peace between the world and himself. In Christ, God did not hold the world guilty of its sins. And he gave us this message of peace. 20 So we have been sent to speak for Christ. It is as if God is calling to you through us. We speak for Christ when we beg you to be at peace with God. 21 Christ had no sin, but God made him become sin so that in Christ we could become right with God.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.