Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Hope in God in the Midst of Despair
For the music director. A maskil of the sons of Korah.[a]
42 As a deer longs for streams of water,
so my soul longs for you, O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?[b]
3 My tears have been my food day and night,
while they say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
4 These I remember and I pour out my soul within me:
that I would go with the multitude;
I led them in procession to the house[c] of God,
with a voice of rejoicing and thanksgiving,
a crowd celebrating a festival.
5 Why are you in despair,[d] O my soul,
and disturbed within me?
Hope in God, because I will again praise him,
for the salvation of his presence.
6 O my God, within me my soul is in despair;[e]
therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan
and the heights of Hermon, from the mountain of Mizar.
7 Deep is calling to deep
at[f] the thunder of your waterfalls.
All your breakers and your waves
have passed over me.
8 By day Yahweh commands his loyal love,
and in the night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
9 I say to God, my rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I walk about mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?”
10 As with a shattering in my bones
my oppressors taunt me,
while they say to me all day,[g]
“Where is your God?”
11 Why are you in despair,[h] O my soul?
And why are you disturbed within me?
Hope in God, because I shall again praise him,
my salvation[i] and my God.
Jethro’s Visit to Moses at the Mountain of God
18 And Jethro, the priest of Midian, the father-in-law of Moses, heard all that God had done for Moses and for Israel, his people, that Yahweh had brought Israel out from Egypt. 2 And Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, took Zipporah the wife of Moses after her sending away, 3 and her two sons—the one whose name was Gershom, for he had said, “I have been an alien in a foreign land,” 4 and the one whose name was Eliezer, for “the God of my father was my help, and he delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh.” 5 And Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, came and his sons and his wife to Moses, to the desert where he was camping there at the mountain of God. 6 And he said to Moses, “I, your father-in-law Jethro, am coming to you and your wife and her two sons with her.” 7 And Moses went out to meet his father-in-law, and he bowed, and he kissed him, and they each asked about the other’s welfare,[a] and they came into the tent.
8 And Moses told his father-in-law all that Yahweh had done to Pharaoh and to Egypt on account of Israel, all the hardship that had found them on the way, and how Yahweh delivered them. 9 And Jethro rejoiced over all the good that Yahweh had done for Israel when he delivered them from the hand of Egypt. 10 And Jethro said, “Blessed be Yahweh, who has delivered you from the hand of Egypt and from the hand of Pharaoh—who has delivered the people from under the hand of Egypt. 11 Now I know that Yahweh is greater than all the gods, even in the matter where they the Egyptians dealt arrogantly against the Israelites.”[b] 12 And Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, took a burnt offering and sacrifices for God, and Aaron and all the elders of Israel came to eat bread with the father-in-law of Moses before God.
Thanksgiving
3 I give thanks to my God upon my every remembrance of you,[a] 4 always in my every prayer for all of you, making the prayer with joy, 5 because of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 convinced of this same thing, that the one who began a good work in you will finish it[b] until the day of Christ Jesus, 7 just as it is right for me to think this about all of you, because I have you in my heart, since[c] both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel all of you are sharers of grace with me. 8 For God is my witness, that I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.
Prayer for Spiritual Maturity
9 And this I pray: that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is superior, in order that you may be sincere and blameless in[d] the day of Christ, 11 having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
The Progress of the Gospel
12 Now I want you to know, brothers, that my circumstances[e] have happened instead for the progress of the gospel, 13 so that my imprisonment in Christ has become known in the whole praetorium[f] and to all the rest, 14 and most of the brothers, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, dare even more to speak the word without fear.
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