Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

¹⁰ Moshe said to Adonai, “Oh, Adonai, I’m a terrible speaker. I always have been, and I’m no better now, even after you’ve spoken to your servant! My words come slowly, my tongue moves slowly.” ¹¹ Adonai answered him, “Who gives a person a mouth? Who makes a person dumb or deaf, keen-sighted or blind? Isn’t it I, Adonai? ¹² Now, therefore, go; and I will be with your mouth and will teach you what to say.”

¹³ But he replied, “Please, Lord, send someone else — anyone you want!” ¹⁴ At this, Adonai’s anger blazed up against Moshe; he said, “Don’t you have a brother, Aharon the Levi? I know that he’s a good speaker. In fact, here he is now, coming out to meet you; and he’ll be happy to see you. ¹⁵ You will speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and his, teaching you both what to do. ¹⁶ Thus he will be your spokesman to the people, in effect; for you, he will be a mouth; and for him, you will be like God. ¹⁷ Now take this staff in your hand, because you need it to perform the signs.”

(vi) ¹⁸ Moshe left, returned to Yitro his father-in-law and said to him, “I beg you to let me go and return to my kinsmen in Egypt, to see if they are still alive.” Yitro said to Moshe, “Go in peace.” ¹⁹ Adonai said to Moshe in Midyan, “Go on back to Egypt, because all the men who wanted to kill you are dead.” ²⁰ So Moshe took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey, and started out for Egypt. Moshe took God’s staff in his hand. ²¹ Adonai said to Moshe, “When you get back to Egypt, make sure that you do before Pharaoh every one of the wonders I have enabled you to do. Nevertheless, I am going to make him hardhearted, and he will refuse to let the people go. ²² Then you are to tell Pharaoh: ‘Adonai says, “Isra’el is my firstborn son. ²³ I have told you to let my son go in order to worship me, but you have refused to let him go. Well, then, I will kill your firstborn son!”’”

²⁴ At a lodging-place on the way, Adonai met Moshe and would have killed him, ²⁵ had not Tzipporah taken a flintstone and cut off the foreskin of her son. She threw it at his feet, saying, “What a bloody bridegroom you are for me!” ²⁶ But then, God let Moshe be. She added, “A bloody bridegroom because of the circumcision!”

²⁷ Adonai said to Aharon, “Go into the desert to meet Moshe.” He went, met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. ²⁸ Moshe told him everything Adonai had said in sending him, including all the signs he had ordered him to perform. ²⁹ Then Moshe and Aharon went and gathered together all the leaders of the people of Isra’el. ³⁰ Aharon said everything Adonai had told Moshe, who then performed the signs for the people to see. ³¹ The people believed; when they heard that Adonai had remembered the people of Isra’el and seen how they were oppressed, they bowed their heads and worshipped.

3 “To the angel of the Messianic Community in Sardis, write: ‘Here is the message from the one who has the sevenfold Spirit of God and the seven stars: “I know what you are doing — you have a reputation for being alive, but in fact you are dead! ² Wake up, and strengthen what remains, before it dies too! For I have found what you are doing incomplete in the sight of my God. ³ So remember what you received and heard, and obey it, and turn from your sin! For if you don’t wake up, I will come like a thief; and you don’t know at what moment I will come upon you. ⁴ Nevertheless, you do have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes; and they will walk with me, clothed in white, because they are worthy. ⁵ He who wins the victory will, like them, be dressed in white clothing; and I will not blot his name out of the Book of Life; in fact, I will acknowledge him individually before my Father and before his angels. ⁶ Those who have ears, let them hear what the Spirit is saying to the Messianic communities.”’