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.

^17-18 So at last Pharaoh let the people go.

God did not lead them through the land of the Philistines, although that was the most direct route from Egypt to the Promised Land. The reason was that God felt the people might become discouraged by having to fight their way through, even though they had left Egypt armed; he thought they might return to Egypt. Instead, God led them along a route through the Red Sea wilderness.

¹⁹ Moses took the bones of Joseph with them, for Joseph had made the sons of Israel vow before God that they would take his bones with them when God led them out of Egypt—as he was sure God would.

²⁰ Leaving Succoth, they camped in Etham at the edge of the wilderness. ²¹ The Lord guided them by a pillar of cloud during the daytime and by a pillar of fire at night. So they could travel either by day or night. ²² The cloud and fire were never out of sight.

¹¹ for the message to us from the beginning has been that we should love one another.

¹² We are not to be like Cain, who belonged to Satan and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because Cain had been doing wrong and he knew very well that his brother’s life was better than his. ¹³ So don’t be surprised, dear friends, if the world hates you.

¹⁴ If we love other Christians, it proves that we have been delivered from hell and given eternal life. But a person who doesn’t have love for others is headed for eternal death. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates his Christian brother is really a murderer at heart; and you know that no one wanting to murder has eternal life within. ¹⁶ We know what real love is from Christ’s example in dying for us. And so we also ought to lay down our lives for our Christian brothers.