Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
83 O God, don’t sit idly by, silent and inactive when we pray. Answer us! Deliver us!
2 Don’t you hear the tumult and commotion of your enemies? Don’t you see what they are doing, these proud men who hate the Lord? 3 They are full of craftiness and plot against your people, laying plans to slay your precious ones. 4 “Come,” they say, “and let us wipe out Israel as a nation—we will destroy the very memory of her existence.”
13 O my God, blow them away like dust; like chaff before the wind— 14 as a forest fire that roars across a mountain. 15 Chase them with your fiery storms, tempests, and tornados. 16 Utterly disgrace them until they recognize your power and name, O Lord. 17 Make them failures in everything they do; let them be ashamed and terrified 18 until they learn that you alone, Jehovah, are the God above all gods in supreme charge of all the earth.
10 But Moses pleaded, “O Lord, I’m just not a good speaker. I never have been, and I’m not now, even after you have spoken to me, for I have a speech impediment.”[a]
11 “Who makes mouths?” Jehovah asked him. “Isn’t it I, the Lord? Who makes a man so that he can speak or not speak, see or not see, hear or not hear? 12 Now go ahead and do as I tell you, for I will help you to speak well, and I will tell you what to say.”
13 But Moses said, “Lord, please! Send someone else.”
14 Then the Lord became angry. “All right,” he said, “your brother, Aaron,[b] is a good speaker. And he is coming here to look for you and will be very happy when he finds you. 15 So I will tell you what to tell him, and I will help both of you to speak well, and I will tell you what to do. 16 He will be your spokesman to the people. And you will be as God to him, telling him what to say. 17 And be sure to take your rod along so that you can perform the miracles I have shown you.”
18 Moses returned home and talked it over with Jethro, his father-in-law. “With your permission,” Moses said, “I will go back to Egypt and visit my relatives. I don’t even know whether they are still alive.”
“Go with my blessing,” Jethro replied.
19 Before Moses left Midian, Jehovah said to him, “Don’t be afraid to return to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead.”
20 So Moses took his wife and sons and put them on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt, holding tightly to the “rod of God”!
21 Jehovah told him, “When you arrive back in Egypt you are to go to Pharaoh and do the miracles I have shown you, but I will make him stubborn so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then you are to tell him, ‘Jehovah says, “Israel is my eldest son, 23 and I have commanded you to let him go away and worship me, but you have refused: and now see, I will slay your eldest son.”’”
24 As Moses and his family were traveling along and had stopped for the night, Jehovah appeared to Moses and threatened to kill him. 25-26 Then Zipporah his wife took a flint knife and cut off the foreskin of her young son’s penis, and threw it against Moses’ feet, remarking disgustedly, “What a blood-smeared husband you’ve turned out to be!”
Then God left him alone.
27 Now Jehovah said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” So Aaron traveled to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God, and met Moses there, and they greeted each other warmly. 28 Moses told Aaron what God had said they must do, and what they were to say, and told him about the miracles they must do before Pharaoh.
29 So Moses and Aaron returned to Egypt and summoned the elders of the people of Israel to a council meeting. 30 Aaron told them what Jehovah had said to Moses, and Moses performed the miracles as they watched. 31 Then the elders believed that God had sent them, and when they heard that Jehovah had visited them and had seen their sorrows, and had decided to rescue them, they all rejoiced and bowed their heads and worshiped.
3
“This message is sent to you by the one who has the sevenfold Spirit[a] of God and the seven stars.
“I know your reputation as a live and active church, but you are dead. 2 Now wake up! Strengthen what little remains—for even what is left is at the point of death. Your deeds are far from right in the sight of God. 3 Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly and turn to me again. Unless you do, I will come suddenly upon you, unexpected as a thief, and punish you.
4 “Yet even there in Sardis some haven’t soiled their garments with the world’s filth; they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. 5 Everyone who conquers will be clothed in white, and I will not erase his name from the Book of Life, but I will announce before my Father and his angels that he is mine.
6 “Let all who can hear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.