Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

106 Hallelujah! Thank you, Lord! How good you are! Your love for us continues on forever. ² Who can ever list the glorious miracles of God? Who can ever praise him half enough?

³ Happiness comes to those who are fair to others and are always just and good.

⁴ Remember me too, O Lord, while you are blessing and saving your people. ⁵ Let me share in your chosen ones’ prosperity and rejoice in all their joys, and receive the glory you give to them.

⁶ Both we and our fathers have sinned so much.

^19-20 For they preferred a statue of an ox that eats grass to the glorious presence of God himself. ^21-22 Thus they despised their Savior who had done such mighty miracles in Egypt and at the Red Sea. ²³ So the Lord declared he would destroy them. But Moses, his chosen one, stepped into the breach between the people and their God and begged him to turn from his wrath and not destroy them.

⁹ Then Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel went up into the mountain. ¹⁰ And they saw the God of Israel; under his feet there seemed to be a pavement of brilliant sapphire stones, as clear as the heavens.

¹¹ Yet, even though the elders saw God, he did not destroy them; and they had a meal together before the Lord.

⁴ You are like an unfaithful wife who loves her husband’s enemies. Don’t you realize that making friends with God’s enemies—the evil pleasures of this world—makes you an enemy of God? I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy the evil pleasure of the unsaved world, you cannot also be a friend of God. ⁵ Or what do you think the Scripture means when it says that the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, watches over us with tender jealousy? ⁶ But he gives us more and more strength to stand against all such evil longings. As the Scripture says, God gives strength to the humble but sets himself against the proud and haughty.

⁷ So give yourselves humbly to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. ⁸ And when you draw close to God, God will draw close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and let your hearts be filled with God alone to make them pure and true to him. ⁹ Let there be tears for the wrong things you have done. Let there be sorrow and sincere grief. Let there be sadness instead of laughter, and gloom instead of joy. ¹⁰ Then when you realize your worthlessness before the Lord, he will lift you up, encourage and help you.