Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

The first Passover meal

12 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the country of Egypt. ² He said, ‘This month will be the first month of each year for you. ³ Tell all the Israelite people to do this on the tenth day of this month: Each man must choose a lamb to kill as a sacrifice for his family. That will be one lamb for each home. ⁴ But the family may be too small to eat a whole lamb. Then they must share a lamb with another family that lives near. You must decide how much each person can eat and then count the number of people. ⁵ The lamb that you choose must have nothing wrong with it. It must be a male lamb that is one year old. It can be either a young sheep or a young goat.

⁶ Keep the lamb safe until the 14th day of this month. Then every Israelite family must kill their lamb in the evening. ⁷ They must take some of its blood. They must put the blood on the wood that is round the door of their house. They must put it on each side of the door and above the door. They must do this in every house where they will eat a lamb. ⁸ That night, they must cook the meat over the fire. They must eat it immediately, with bitter herbs and with bread that has no yeast in it. ⁹ You must cook the meat before you eat it. Cook it over the fire. Do not cook it in water. Cook the whole lamb, with its head, its legs and the inside parts of its body. ¹⁰ You must eat all the meat before morning arrives. If some of it still remains in the morning, then you must burn it. ¹¹ This is how you must eat the lamb: Dress yourselves so that you are ready to travel. Put your shoes on your feet. Take your stick in your hand. Then eat the food quickly. This is the Passover meal which shows that you obey me, the Lord.

¹² On the night that you eat the Passover meal, I will travel through the country of Egypt. I will kill every firstborn son and every firstborn male animal. I will punish all the gods of Egypt. I am the Lord. ¹³ When you put the blood round the doors of your houses, that will be a sign to show that you live there. When I see the blood on your house, I will pass over you.^[a] No trouble will hurt you, when I attack the people of Egypt.

¹⁴ In future years, you must remember this day as a special day every year. It will be a festival when you worship me, the Lord. You and your descendants must do this every year, for all time.

The 4th Hallelujah Psalm

Love other people

⁸ Always pay your debts to people. The only debt that you should have is to love each other. Anyone who loves other people has obeyed God's Law completely.

⁹ The rules in God's Law say this: ‘Do not have sex with anyone who is not your own wife or your own husband. Do not kill anyone. Do not rob anyone. Do not want things that belong to other people.’ All these rules, and all the other rules in God's Law, are all included in one rule. That one rule is: ‘Love other people as much as you love yourself.’ ¹⁰ If you love other people, you will never do anything bad to them. So anyone who loves other people has obeyed God's Law completely.

¹¹ Live in that way, because you know what is happening in this time now. It is time that you should stop sleeping. It is now time to wake up. The time when God will save us completely is near. That time is nearer now than when we first believed in him. ¹² The night has nearly finished and the day is almost here. So we must stop doing the bad things that belong to the dark. Instead, we must take weapons like soldiers who are ready to fight in the light.^[a]

¹³ We should live in a good way, because we live in the light of day. We should not go to wild parties. We must not be drunks. We must not have sex with anyone who is not our own wife or husband. We must not do wrong things with our bodies. We must not quarrel. We must not be jealous of other people. ¹⁴ Instead, you must live with the Lord Jesus Christ as your guide. Do not even think about the bad things that you may want to do to make yourself happy.

A friend does wrong things against you

¹⁵ Jesus said, ‘If your Christian friend has done something wrong against you, you must go and speak to him. When you are alone with him, tell him what he has done that is wrong. He may agree with what you say. If he does, then you can call him your friend again.

¹⁶ But maybe he does not want to listen to you. Then take one or two other people with you to speak to him. They will then know what wrong things your friend has done. Remember what the Bible says: “There must be two or three people to say certainly that another person has done something wrong. Two or three people must agree what has happened.” ¹⁷ If your friend still will not agree that he has done something wrong, then go and tell the church leaders.^[a] If he does not agree with the leaders, stop being his friend. He is like somebody who refuses to obey God.^[b]

¹⁸ I tell you this: You will tell people here on earth what is right for them to do. And you will tell them what is not right for them to do. God in heaven will give you this authority. He will agree with what you say.

¹⁹ Two people may agree together to ask God for something. If they agree like that, then my Father in heaven will give them what they ask for.^{[c] 20} Two or more people may meet together because they believe in me. If they do that, I will be there with them.’