Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
God and His People[a]
78 Listen, my people, to my teaching,
and pay attention to what I say.
2 (A)I am going to use wise sayings
and explain mysteries from the past,
3 things we have heard and known,
things that our ancestors told us.
4 We will not keep them from our children;
we will tell the next generation
about the Lord's power and his great deeds
and the wonderful things he has done.
12 (A)While their ancestors watched, God performed miracles
in the plain of Zoan in the land of Egypt.
13 (B)He divided the sea and took them through it;
he made the waters stand like walls.
14 (C)By day he led them with a cloud
and all night long with the light of a fire.
15 He split rocks open in the desert
and gave them water from the depths.
16 (D)He caused a stream to come out of the rock
and made water flow like a river.
Events at Kadesh(A)
20 In the first month the whole community of Israel came to the wilderness of Zin and camped at Kadesh. There Miriam died and was buried.
2 (B)There was no water where they camped, so the people gathered around Moses and Aaron 3 and complained: “It would have been better if we had died in front of the Lord's Tent along with the other Israelites. 4 Why have you brought us out into this wilderness? Just so that we can die here with our animals? 5 Why did you bring us out of Egypt into this miserable place where nothing will grow? There's no grain, no figs, no grapes, no pomegranates. There is not even any water to drink!” 6 Moses and Aaron moved away from the people and stood at the entrance of the Tent. They bowed down with their faces to the ground, and the dazzling light of the Lord's presence appeared to them.
7 The Lord said to Moses, 8 “Take the stick that is in front of the Covenant Box, and then you and Aaron assemble the whole community. There in front of them all speak to that rock over there, and water will gush out of it. In this way you will bring water out of the rock for the people, for them and their animals to drink.” 9 Moses went and got the stick, as the Lord had commanded.
10 He and Aaron assembled the whole community in front of the rock, and Moses said, “Listen, you rebels! Do we have to get water out of this rock for you?” 11 (C)Then Moses raised the stick and struck the rock twice with it, and a great stream of water gushed out, and all the people and animals drank.
12 But the Lord reprimanded Moses and Aaron. He said, “Because you did not have enough faith to acknowledge my holy power before the people of Israel, you will not lead them into the land that I promised to give them.”
13 This happened at Meribah,[a] where the people of Israel complained against the Lord and where he showed them that he is holy.
32-33 (A)And we are here to bring the Good News to you: what God promised our ancestors he would do, he has now done for us, who are their descendants, by raising Jesus to life. As it is written in the second Psalm,
‘You are my Son;
today I have become your Father.’
34 (B)And this is what God said about raising him from death, never to rot away in the grave:
‘I will give you the sacred and sure blessings
that I promised to David.’
35 (C)As indeed he says in another passage,
‘You will not allow your faithful servant to rot in the grave.’
36 For David served God's purposes in his own time, and then he died, was buried with his ancestors, and his body rotted in the grave. 37 But this did not happen to the one whom God raised from death. 38-39 All of you, my fellow Israelites, are to know for sure that it is through Jesus that the message about forgiveness of sins is preached to you; you are to know that everyone who believes in him is set free from all the sins from which the Law of Moses could not set you free. 40 Take care, then, so that what the prophets said may not happen to you:[a]
41 (D)‘Look, you scoffers! Be astonished and die!
For what I am doing today
is something that you will not believe,
even when someone explains it to you!’”
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.