Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
The Happiness of a Good Person
112 Praise the Lord!
Happy is the person who honors the Lord,
who takes pleasure in obeying his commands.
2 The good man's children will be powerful in the land;
his descendants will be blessed.
3 His family will be wealthy and rich,
and he will be prosperous forever.
4 Light shines in the darkness for good people,
for those who are merciful, kind, and just.
5 Happy is the person who is generous with his loans,
who runs his business honestly.
6 A good person will never fail;
he will always be remembered.
7 He is not afraid of receiving bad news;
his faith is strong, and he trusts in the Lord.
8 He is not worried or afraid;
he is certain to see his enemies defeated.
9 (A)He gives generously to the needy,
and his kindness never fails;
he will be powerful and respected.
10 The wicked see this and are angry;
they glare in hate and disappear;
their hopes are gone forever.
Moses Urges Israel to Be Obedient
4 Then Moses said to the people, “Obey all the laws that I am teaching you, and you will live and occupy the land which the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you. 2 (A)Do not add anything to what I command you, and do not take anything away. Obey the commands of the Lord your God that I have given you. 3 (B)You yourselves saw what the Lord did at Mount Peor. He destroyed everyone who worshiped Baal there, 4 but those of you who were faithful to the Lord your God are still alive today.
5 “I have taught you all the laws, as the Lord my God told me to do. Obey them in the land that you are about to invade and occupy. 6 Obey them faithfully, and this will show the people of other nations how wise you are. When they hear of all these laws, they will say, ‘What wisdom and understanding this great nation has!’
7 “No other nation, no matter how great, has a god who is so near when they need him as the Lord our God is to us. He answers us whenever we call for help. 8 No other nation, no matter how great, has laws so just as those that I have taught you today. 9 Be on your guard! Make certain that you do not forget, as long as you live, what you have seen with your own eyes. Tell your children and your grandchildren 10 about the day you stood in the presence of the Lord your God at Mount Sinai,[a] when he said to me, ‘Assemble the people. I want them to hear what I have to say, so that they will learn to obey me as long as they live and so that they will teach their children to do the same.’
11 (C)“Tell your children how you went and stood at the foot of the mountain which was covered with thick clouds of dark smoke and fire blazing up to the sky. 12 Tell them how the Lord spoke to you from the fire, how you heard him speaking but did not see him in any form at all. 13 (D)He told you what you must do to keep the covenant he made with you—you must obey the Ten Commandments, which he wrote on two stone tablets. 14 (E)The Lord told me to teach you all the laws that you are to obey in the land that you are about to invade and occupy.
Our Victory over the World
5 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Messiah is a child of God; and whoever loves a father loves his child also. 2 This is how we know that we love God's children: it is by loving God and obeying his commands. 3 (A)For our love for God means that we obey his commands. And his commands are not too hard for us, 4 because every child of God is able to defeat the world. And we win the victory over the world by means of our faith. 5 Who can defeat the world? Only the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.