Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
God’s Guidance of His People in Spite of Their Unfaithfulness.
A skillful song, or a didactic or reflective poem, of Asaph.
78 Listen, O my people, to my teaching;
Incline your ears to the words of my mouth [and be willing to learn].
2
I will open my mouth in a parable [to instruct using examples];
I will utter dark and puzzling sayings of old [that contain important truth]—(A)
3
Which we have heard and known,
And our fathers have told us.
4
We will not hide them from their children,
But [we will] tell to the generation to come the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,
And [tell of] His great might and power and the wonderful works that He has done.
12
He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers
In the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan [where Pharaoh resided].
13
He divided the [Red] Sea and allowed them to pass through it,
And He made the waters stand up like [water behind] a dam.(A)
14
In the daytime He led them with a cloud
And all the night with a light of fire.(B)
15
He split rocks in the wilderness
And gave them abundant [water to] drink like the ocean depths.
16
He brought streams also from the rock [at Rephidim and Kadesh]
And caused waters to run down like rivers.(C)
17 This is what the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says,
“I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit (benefit),
Who leads you in the way that you should go.
18
“Oh, that you had paid attention to My commandments!
Then your peace and prosperity would have been like a [flowing] river,
And your righteousness [the holiness and purity of the nation] like the [abundant] waves of the sea.
19
“Your offspring would have been like the sand,
And your descendants [in number] like the grains of sand;
Their name would never be cut off or destroyed from My presence.”(A)
20
Get out of Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans [who reign there]!
Declare with a voice of jubilation, proclaim this,
Send it out to the end of the earth;
Say, “The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob.”
21
They did not thirst when He led them through the deserts.
He made the waters flow out of the rock for them;
He split the rock and the waters flowed.
11 Believers, do not speak against or slander one another. He who speaks [self-righteously] against a brother or [a]judges his brother [hypocritically], speaks against the Law and judges the Law. If you judge the Law, you are not a doer of the Law but a judge of it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy [the one God who has the absolute power of life and death]; but who are you to [hypocritically or self-righteously] pass judgment on your neighbor?
13 Come now [and pay attention to this], you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and carry on our business and make a profit.” 14 [b]Yet you do not know [the least thing] [c]about what may happen in your life tomorrow. [What is secure in your life?] You are merely a vapor [like a puff of smoke or a wisp of steam from a cooking pot] that is visible for a little while and then vanishes [into thin air]. 15 Instead [d]you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and we will do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast [vainly] in your pretension and arrogance. All such boasting is evil.
Copyright © 2015 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA 90631. All rights reserved.