Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
114 Long ago when the Israelis escaped from Egypt, from that land of foreign tongue, 2 then the lands of Judah and of Israel became God’s new home and kingdom.
3 The Red Sea saw them coming and quickly broke apart before them. The Jordan River opened up a path for them to cross. 4 The mountains skipped like rams, the little hills like lambs! 5 What’s wrong, Red Sea, that made you cut yourself in two? What happened, Jordan River, to your waters? Why were they held back? 6 Why, mountains, did you skip like rams? Why, little hills, like lambs?
7 Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, the God of Jacob. 8 For he caused gushing streams to burst from flinty rock.
1 The Lord sent this message to Jonah, the son of Amittai:
2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh, and give them this announcement from the Lord: ‘I am going to destroy you, for your wickedness rises before me; it smells to highest heaven.’”
3 But Jonah was afraid to go and ran away from the Lord. He went down to the seacoast, to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket, went on board, and climbed down into the dark hold of the ship to hide there from the Lord.
4 But as the ship was sailing along, suddenly the Lord flung a terrific wind over the sea, causing a great storm that threatened to send them to the bottom. 5 Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. And all this time Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold.
6 So the captain went down after him. “What do you mean,” he roared, “sleeping at a time like this? Get up and cry to your god, and see if he will have mercy on us and save us!”
7 Then the crew decided to draw straws to see which of them had offended the gods and caused this terrible storm; and Jonah drew the short one.
8 “What have you done,” they asked, “to bring this awful storm upon us? Who are you? What is your work? What country are you from? What is your nationality?”
9-10 And he said, “I am a Jew;[a] I worship Jehovah, the God of heaven, who made the earth and sea.” Then he told them he was running away from the Lord.
The men were terribly frightened when they heard this. “Oh, why did you do it?” they shouted. 11 “What should we do to you to stop the storm?” For it was getting worse and worse.
12 “Throw me out into the sea,” he said, “and it will become calm again. For I know this terrible storm has come because of me.”
13 They tried harder to row the boat ashore, but couldn’t make it. The storm was too fierce to fight against. 14 Then they shouted out a prayer to Jehovah, Jonah’s God. “O Jehovah,” they pleaded, “don’t make us die for this man’s sin, and don’t hold us responsible for his death, for it is not our fault—you have sent this storm upon him for your own good reasons.”
15 Then they picked up Jonah and threw him overboard into the raging sea—and the storm stopped!
16 The men stood there in awe before Jehovah, and they sacrificed to him and vowed to serve him.
17 Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.
19 And if being a Christian is of value to us only now in this life, we are the most miserable of creatures.
20 But the fact is that Christ did actually rise from the dead and has become the first of millions[a] who will come back to life again someday.
21 Death came into the world because of what one man (Adam) did, and it is because of what this other man (Christ) has done that now there is the resurrection from the dead. 22 Everyone dies because all of us are related to Adam, being members of his sinful race, and wherever there is sin, death results. But all who are related to Christ will rise again. 23 Each, however, in his own turn: Christ rose first; then when Christ comes back, all his people will become alive again.
24 After that the end will come when he will turn the Kingdom over to God the Father, having put down all enemies of every kind. 25 For Christ will be King until he has defeated all his enemies, 26 including the last enemy—death. This too must be defeated and ended. 27 For the rule and authority over all things has been given to Christ by his Father; except, of course, Christ does not rule over the Father himself, who gave him this power to rule. 28 When Christ has finally won the battle against all his enemies, then he, the Son of God, will put himself also under his Father’s orders, so that God who has given him the victory over everything else will be utterly supreme.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.