Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁴⁹ Remember Your Word to Your servant, for You have given me hope. ⁵⁰ Your Word has given me new life. This is my comfort in my suffering. ⁵¹ The proud always laugh at me, but I do not turn away from Your Law. ⁵² I have remembered Your Law from a long time ago, O Lord, and I am comforted. ⁵³ Burning anger comes upon me because of the sinful who turn away from Your Law. ⁵⁴ Your Laws are my songs in whatever house I stay. ⁵⁵ I remember Your name in the night, O Lord, and I have kept Your Law. ⁵⁶ It has become my way to obey Your Law.

²² “The Lord spoke these words to you while you were all gathered at the mountain. He spoke with a loud voice from the center of the fire, the cloud and the darkness. He added no more. And He wrote them on two pieces of stone and gave them to me.

The People Are Afraid

²³ “When you heard the voice from the center of the darkness while the mountain burned with fire, you came to me with all the heads of your families and your leaders. ²⁴ And you said, ‘See, the Lord our God has shown us His shining-greatness. We have heard His voice from the center of the fire. Today we have seen that God speaks with man and man still lives. ²⁵ But why should we die now? For this big fire will burn us up. If we hear the voice of the Lord our God any more, we will die. ²⁶ For who of all flesh has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking from the center of the fire, as we have heard, and lived? ²⁷ Go near and hear all the Lord our God says. Then tell us all the Lord our God says to you, and we will listen and do it.’

²⁸ “The Lord heard what you said when you spoke to me. And the Lord said to me, ‘I have heard the words which the people have spoken to you. They have done well in all that they have said. ²⁹ If only they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and live by all My Laws always! Then it would go well with them and with their children forever. ³⁰ Go and say to them, “Return to your tents.” ³¹ But you stand here by Me. And I will tell you all the Laws which you should teach them, so they may keep them in the land I give them for their own.’ ³² Be careful to do just as the Lord your God has told you. Do not turn aside to the right or to the left. ³³ Walk in all the way the Lord your God has told you. Then you may live, it may be well with you, and you may live a long time in the land that will belong to you.

The Greatest Law

6 “These are the Laws which the Lord your God has told me to teach you. You are to do them in the land you are going to take for your own. ² Then you and your son and your grandson will fear the Lord your God. You will obey all His Laws that I tell you, all the days of your life. And then you will have a longer life. ³ O Israel, you should listen and be careful to do them. Then it will go well with you. And you will become many in a land flowing with milk and honey. This is what the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you.

¹⁷ For if a man belongs to Christ, he is a new person. The old life is gone. New life has begun. ¹⁸ All this comes from God. He is the One Who brought us to Himself when we hated Him. He did this through Christ. Then He gave us the work of bringing others to Him. ¹⁹ God was in Christ. He was working through Christ to bring the whole world back to Himself. God no longer held men’s sins against them. And He gave us the work of telling and showing men this. ²⁰ We are Christ’s missionaries. God is speaking to you through us. We are speaking for Christ and we ask you from our hearts to turn from your sins and come to God. ²¹ Christ never sinned but God put our sin on Him. Then we are made right with God because of what Christ has done for us.