Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
49 Remember the word ⌞you gave⌟ me.
Through it you gave me hope.
50 This is my comfort in my misery:
Your promise gave me a new life.
51 Arrogant people have mocked me with cruelty,
yet I have not turned away from your teachings.
52 I remembered your regulations from long ago, O Lord,
and I found comfort ⌞in them⌟.
53 I am burning with anger because of wicked people,
who abandon your teachings.
54 Your laws have become like psalms to me
in this place where I am only a foreigner.
55 At night I remember your name, O Lord,
and I follow your teachings.
56 This has happened to me
because I have obeyed your guiding principles.
22 These are the commandments the Lord spoke to your whole assembly on the mountain. He spoke in a loud voice from the fire, the cloud, and the gloomy darkness. Then he stopped speaking. He wrote the commandments on two stone tablets and gave them to me.
23 But when you heard the voice coming from the darkness and saw the mountain blazing with fire, all the leaders and heads of your tribes came to me. 24 You said, “The Lord our God has let us see how great and glorious he is. We’ve heard his voice come from the fire. Today we’ve seen that people can live even if God speaks to them. 25 Why should we die? This great fire will consume us! If we continue to hear the voice of the Lord our God, we’ll die! 26 Who has ever heard the voice of the living God speak from a fire, as we did, and lived? 27 ⌞Moses,⌟ go and listen to everything that the Lord our God says. Then tell us whatever the Lord our God tells you. We’ll listen and obey.”
28 When the Lord heard the words that you spoke to me, he said, “I have heard what these people said to you. Everything they said was good. 29 If only they would fear me and obey all my commandments as long as they live! Then things would go well for them and their children forever.
30 “Tell the people to go back to their tents. 31 But you stay here with me. I will give you all the commands, laws, and rules that you must teach them to obey in the land which I’m giving them to possess.”
32 So be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you. Never stop living this way. 33 Follow all the directions the Lord your God has given you. Then you will continue to live, life will go well for you, and you will live for a long time in the land that you are going to possess.
Love the Lord
6 These are the commands, laws, and rules the Lord your God commanded me to teach you. Obey them after you enter the land and take possession of it. 2 As long as you live, you, your children, and your grandchildren must fear the Lord your God. All of you must obey all his laws and commands that I’m giving you, and you will live a long time. 3 Listen, Israel, and be careful to obey these laws. Then things will go well for you and your population will increase in a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord God of your ancestors promised you.
17 Whoever is a believer in Christ is a new creation. The old way of living has disappeared. A new way of living has come into existence. 18 God has done all this. He has restored our relationship with him through Christ, and has given us this ministry of restoring relationships. 19 In other words, God was using Christ to restore his relationship with humanity. He didn’t hold people’s faults against them, and he has given us this message of restored relationships to tell others. 20 Therefore, we are Christ’s representatives, and through us God is calling you. We beg you on behalf of Christ to become reunited with God. 21 God had Christ, who was sinless, take our sin so that we might receive God’s approval through him.
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