Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁸ Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. ⁹ He said to his people, “Look, the people of Bnei-Yisrael are too numerous and too powerful for us. ¹⁰ Come, we must deal shrewdly with them, or else they will grow even more numerous, so that if war breaks out, they may join our enemies, fight against us, and then escape from the land.”

¹¹ So they set slave masters over them to afflict them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Raamses as storage cities for Pharaoh. ¹² But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread. So the Egyptians dreaded the presence of Bnei-Yisrael. ¹³ They worked them harshly, ¹⁴ and made their lives bitter with hard labor with mortar and brick, doing all sorts of work in the fields. In all their labors they worked them with cruelty.

¹⁵ Moreover the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, ¹⁶ and said, “When you help the Hebrew women during childbirth, look at the sex. If it’s a son, then kill him, but if it’s a daughter, she may live.” ¹⁷ Yet the midwives feared God, so they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the boys live. ¹⁸ So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this—let the boys live?”

¹⁹ The midwives told Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like Egyptian women. They are like animals,^[a] and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” ²⁰ So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied, growing very numerous. ²¹ Because the midwives feared God, He gave them families of their own.

²² But Pharaoh charged all his people saying, “You are to cast every son that is born into the river, but let every daughter live.”

Young Moses

2 Now a man from the house of Levi took as his wife a daughter of Levi. ² The woman conceived and gave birth to a son. Now when she saw that he was delightful, she hid him for three months. ^{[b] 3} But when she could no longer hide him, she took a basket of papyrus reeds, coated it with tar and pitch, put the child inside, and laid it in the reeds by the bank of the Nile. ⁴ His sister stood off at a distance to see what would happen to him.

⁵ Then the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe, while her maidens walked along by the riverside. When she saw the basket^[c] among the reeds, she sent her handmaiden to fetch it. ⁶ When she opened it, she saw the child—a baby boy crying! She had compassion on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrew children.”

⁷ Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Should I go and call a nurse from the Hebrews to nurse the child for you?”

⁸ Pharaoh’s daughter told her, “Go!” So the girl went and called the child’s mother. ⁹ Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child and nurse him for me, and I will pay you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. ¹⁰ After the boy grew older she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. So she named him Moses saying, “Because I drew him out of the water.”^[d]

Had He Not Been on Our Side

Psalm 124

Be Dead to Self

12 I urge you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice—holy, acceptable to God—which is your spiritual service. ² Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.

³ For through the grace given me, I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think—but to use sound judgment, as God has assigned to each person a measure of faith. ⁴ For just as we have many parts in one body—and all the parts do not have the same function— ⁵ so we, who are many, are one body in Messiah and everyone parts of one another. ⁶ We have gifts that differ according to the grace that was given to us—if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; ⁷ if service, in our serving; or the one who teaches, in his teaching; ⁸ or the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who gives, in generosity; the one who leads, with diligence; the one who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

The Father Reveals His Son

¹³ When Yeshua came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

¹⁴ They answered, “Some say John the Immerser, others say Elijah, and still others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.”

¹⁵ He said, “But who do you say I am?”

¹⁶ Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷ Yeshua said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven! ¹⁸ And I also tell you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My community^[a]; and the gates of Sheol will not overpower it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you forbid on earth will have been forbidden in heaven and what you permit on earth will have been permitted in heaven.” ²⁰ Then He ordered the disciples not to tell anyone that He was the Messiah.