Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

135 Hallelujah! ² Yes, let his people praise him as they stand in his Temple courts. ³ Praise the Lord because he is so good; sing to his wonderful name. ⁴ For the Lord has chosen Israel as his personal possession.

⁵ I know the greatness of the Lord—that he is greater far than any other god. ⁶ He does whatever pleases him throughout all of heaven and earth and in the deepest seas. ⁷ He makes mists rise throughout the earth; he sends the lightning to bring down the rain and sends the winds from his treasuries. ⁸ He destroyed the eldest child in each Egyptian home, along with the firstborn of the flocks. ⁹ He did great miracles in Egypt before Pharaoh and all his people. ¹⁰ He smote great nations, slaying mighty kings— ¹¹ Sihon, king of Amorites; and Og, the king of Bashan; and the kings of Canaan— ¹² and gave their land as an eternal gift to his people Israel.

¹³ O Jehovah, your name endures forever; your fame is known to every generation. ¹⁴ For Jehovah will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants.

¹⁵ The heathen worship idols of gold and silver made by men— ¹⁶ idols with speechless mouths, sightless eyes, ¹⁷ and ears that cannot hear; they cannot even breathe. ¹⁸ Those who make them become like them! And so do all who trust in them!

¹⁹ O Israel, bless Jehovah! High Priests of Aaron, bless his name. ²⁰ O Levite priests, bless the Lord Jehovah! Oh, bless his name, all of you who trust and reverence him. ²¹ All people of Jerusalem, praise the Lord,^[a] for he lives here in Jerusalem. Hallelujah!

26 Listen to them singing! In that day the whole land of Judah will sing this song:

“Our city is strong! We are surrounded by the walls of his salvation!” ² Open the gates to everyone, for all may enter in who love the Lord. ³ He will keep in perfect peace all those who trust in him, whose thoughts turn often to the Lord! ⁴ Trust in the Lord God always, for in the Lord Jehovah is your everlasting strength. ⁵ He humbles the proud and brings the haughty city to the dust; its walls come crashing down. ⁶ He presents it to the poor and needy for their use.

⁷ But for good men the path is not uphill and rough! God does not give them a rough and treacherous path, but smooths the road before them. ⁸ O Lord, we love to do your will! Our hearts’ desire is to glorify your name. ⁹ All night long I search for you; earnestly I seek for God; for only when you come in judgment on the earth to punish it will people turn away from wickedness and do what is right.

¹⁰ Your kindness to the wicked doesn’t make them good; they keep on doing wrong and take no notice of your majesty. ¹¹ They do not listen when you threaten; they will not look to see your upraised fist. Show them how much you love your people. Perhaps then they will be ashamed! Yes, let them be burned up by the fire reserved for your enemies.

¹² Lord, grant us peace; for all we have and are has come from you. ¹³ O Lord our God, once we worshiped other gods; but now we worship you alone. ¹⁴ Those we served before are dead and gone; never again will they return. You came against them and destroyed them, and they are long forgotten. ¹⁵ O praise the Lord! He has made our nation very great. He has widened the boundaries of our land!

¹⁸ Then the Sadducees stepped forward—a group of men who say there is no resurrection. Here was their question:

¹⁹ “Teacher, Moses gave us a law that when a man dies without children, the man’s brother should marry his widow and have children in his brother’s name. ^20-22 Well, there were seven brothers and the oldest married and died, and left no children. So the second brother married the widow, but soon he died too and left no children. Then the next brother married her and died without children, and so on until all were dead, and still there were no children; and last of all, the woman died too.

²³ “What we want to know is this:^[a] In the resurrection, whose wife will she be, for she had been the wife of each of them?”

²⁴ Jesus replied, “Your trouble is that you don’t know the Scriptures and don’t know the power of God. ²⁵ For when these seven brothers and the woman rise from the dead, they won’t be married—they will be like the angels.

²⁶ “But now as to whether there will be a resurrection—have you never read in the book of Exodus about Moses and the burning bush? God said to Moses, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and I am the God of Isaac, and I am the God of Jacob.’

²⁷ “God was telling Moses that these men, though dead for hundreds of years,^[b] were still very much alive, for he would not have said, ‘I am the God’ of those who don’t exist! You have made a serious error.”