Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Zayin
49 Do not forget Your promise to Your servant;
through it You have given me hope.
50 This brings me solace in the midst of my troubles:
that Your word has revived me.
51 Those who are proud cruelly ridicule me,
but I keep to the steady path of Your teachings.
52 I have considered Your ancient rulings, O Eternal One,
and their memory brings me comfort.
53 Burning anger rises in me, has me in its grip
because the unrighteous abandon Your teachings.
54 As I journey through this life,
Your statutes are my song.
55 O Eternal One, through the night, I stop to recall Your name.
That’s how I live according to Your teachings.
56 This has become my practice:
to keep Your ordinances.
5 Moses: Listen, Israel, as I proclaim these rules and decrees directly to you today! Learn them, and put them into practice. 2 The Eternal our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. 3 The Eternal didn’t make that covenant just with our parents; He also made it with all of us who are alive here today, because we were included in the covenant when He made it with them. 4 The Eternal tried to talk to you directly at that mountain from inside the fire that rose up into the sky. 5 But you were afraid of the fire and wouldn’t go up the mountain, so I stood between you and the Eternal and told you what He was saying.
Eternal One (speaking to the people of Israel through Moses): 6 I am the Eternal. I am your True God. I led you out of Egypt where you were slaves.
7 You are to worship no other gods before me—My presence is enough.
8 You are not to make idols of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or down in the sea. 9 You are not to bow down in worship of any images of other gods, for I am the Eternal your God. I am jealous for worship, bringing punishment on you and your children to come, even down to your great-grandchildren, to whoever hates Me. 10 Instead, those who obey My commands and truly love Me will receive My loyal love endlessly, even for a thousand generations.
11 You are to not use My name lightly or flippantly or as a curse. I will punish anyone who treats My name as anything less than sacred.
12 You and your family are to honor the Sabbath by setting it aside for the Lord your God. Make sure it remains holy, just as I commanded you. 13 You should do all of your work in six days, and 14 on the seventh—the Sabbath—do not do any work. This goes for you, your sons, your daughters, your male and female servants, your oxen and donkeys and cattle, and foreign travelers staying at your house. My Sabbath rest is for all to enjoy. 15 Remember what it was like when you were a slave in Egypt. Then with overwhelming power I brought you out of there. That’s why I have commanded you to observe the Sabbath each week.
16 Honor your father and mother,[a] as I have commanded you. If you do, you will be blessed with long life and all will go well for you as you live on the ground I am giving you.[b]
17 You must never murder anyone.
18 You must never commit adultery.[c]
19 You must never steal.
20 You must never lie when you’re called to give testimony about another person.[d]
21 Never look at someone else’s wife and wish you could have her. Never look at anything that belongs to someone else and wish it was yours—his house, field, male or female slave, ox, donkey, or anything else he owns.
4 Come to Him—the living stone—who was rejected by people but accepted by God as chosen and precious. 5 Like living stones, let yourselves be assembled into a spiritual house, a holy order of priests who offer up spiritual sacrifices that will be acceptable to God through Jesus the Anointed. 6 For it says in the words of the prophet Isaiah,
See here—I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone, chosen and precious;
Whoever depends upon Him will never be disgraced.[a]
7 To you who believe and depend on Him, He is precious; but to you who don’t, remember the words of the psalmist:
The stone that the builders rejected
has been laid as the cornerstone—the very stone that holds together the entire foundation,[b]
8 and of Isaiah:
A stone that blocks their way,
a rock that trips them.[c]
They stumble because they don’t follow the word of God, as they were destined to do.
9 But you are a chosen people, set aside to be a royal order of priests, a holy nation, God’s own; so that you may proclaim the wondrous acts of the One who called you out of inky darkness into shimmering light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received it.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.