Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
149 Hallelujah! Yes, praise the Lord! Sing him a new song. Sing his praises, all his people.
2 O Israel, rejoice in your Maker. O people of Jerusalem, exult in your King. 3 Praise his name with dancing, accompanied by drums and lyre.
4-5 For Jehovah enjoys his people; he will save the humble. Let his people rejoice in this honor. Let them sing for joy as they lie upon their beds.
6-7 Adore him, O his people! And take a double-edged sword to execute his punishment upon the nations. 8 Bind their kings and leaders with iron chains, 9 and execute their sentences.
He is the glory of his people. Hallelujah! Praise him!
11 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will send just one more disaster on Pharaoh and his land, and after that he will let you go; in fact, he will be so anxious to get rid of you that he will practically throw you out of the country. 2 Tell all the men and women of Israel to ask their Egyptian neighbors for gold and silver jewelry.”
3 (For God caused the Egyptians to be very favorable to the people of Israel, and Moses was a very great man in the land of Egypt and was revered by Pharaoh’s officials and the Egyptian people alike.)
4 Now Moses announced to Pharaoh,[a] “Jehovah says, ‘About midnight I will pass through Egypt. 5 And all the oldest sons shall die in every family in Egypt, from the oldest child of Pharaoh, heir to his throne, to the oldest child of his lowliest slave; and even the firstborn of the animals. 6 The wail of death will resound throughout the entire land of Egypt; never before has there been such anguish, and it will never be again.
7 “‘But not a dog shall move his tongue against any of the people of Israel, nor shall any of their animals die. Then you will know that Jehovah makes a distinction between Egyptians and Israelis.’ 8 All these officials of yours will come running to me, bowing low and begging, ‘Please leave at once, and take all your people with you.’ Only then will I go!” Then, red-faced with anger, Moses stomped from the palace.[b]
9 The Lord had told Moses, “Pharaoh won’t listen, and this will give me the opportunity of doing mighty miracles to demonstrate my power.” 10 So, although Moses and Aaron did these miracles right before Pharaoh’s eyes, the Lord hardened his heart so that he wouldn’t let the people leave the land.
29-30 “Yes, woe to you, Pharisees, and you religious leaders—hypocrites! For you build monuments to the prophets killed by your fathers and lay flowers on the graves of the godly men they destroyed, and say, ‘We certainly would never have acted as our fathers did.’
31 “In saying that, you are accusing yourselves of being the sons of wicked men. 32 And you are following in their steps, filling up the full measure of their evil. 33 Snakes! Sons of vipers! How shall you escape the judgment of hell?
34 “I will send you prophets, and wise men, and inspired writers, and you will kill some by crucifixion, and rip open the backs of others with whips in your synagogues, and hound them from city to city, 35 so that you will become guilty of all the blood of murdered godly men from righteous Abel to Zechariah (son of Barachiah), slain by you in the Temple between the altar and the sanctuary. 36 Yes, all the accumulated judgment of the centuries shall break upon the heads of this very generation.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.