Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁷ “Today,” the Lord told Joshua, “I will give you great honor, so that all Israel will know that I am with you just as I was with Moses. ⁸ Instruct the priests who are carrying the Ark to stop at the edge of the river.”

⁹ Then Joshua summoned all the people and told them, “Come and listen to what the Lord your God has said. ¹⁰ Today you are going to know for sure that the living God is among you and that he will, without fail, drive out the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites—all the people who now live in the land you will soon occupy. ¹¹ Think of it! The Ark of God, who is Lord of the whole earth, will lead you across the river!

¹² “Now select twelve men, one from each tribe, for a special task.^{[a] 13-14} When the priests who are carrying the Ark touch the water with their feet, the river will stop flowing as though held back by a dam, and will pile up as though against an invisible wall!” Now it was the harvest season and the Jordan was overflowing all its banks; but as the people set out to cross the river and as the feet of the priests who were carrying the Ark touched the water at the river’s edge, ^15-16 suddenly, far up the river at the city of Adam, near Zarethan, the water began piling up as though against a dam! And the water below that point flowed on to the Dead Sea until the riverbed was empty. Then all the people crossed at a spot where the river was close to the city of Jericho, ¹⁷ and the priests who were carrying the Ark stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan and waited as all the people passed by.

107 Say thank you to the Lord for being so good, for always being so loving and kind. ² Has the Lord redeemed you? Then speak out! Tell others he has saved you from your enemies.

³ He brought the exiles back from the farthest corners of the earth. ⁴ They were wandering homeless in the desert, ⁵ hungry and thirsty and faint. ⁶ “Lord, help!” they cried, and he did! ⁷ He led them straight to safety and a place to live.

³³ He dries up rivers ³⁴ and turns the good land of the wicked into deserts of salt. ³⁵ Again, he turns deserts into fertile, watered valleys. ³⁶ He brings the hungry to settle there and build their cities, ³⁷ to sow their fields and plant their vineyards, and reap their bumper crops!

⁹ Don’t you remember, dear brothers, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled and sweated to earn enough to live on so that our expenses would not be a burden to anyone there, as we preached God’s Good News among you. ¹⁰ You yourselves are our witnesses—as is God—that we have been pure and honest and faultless toward every one of you. ¹¹ We talked to you as a father to his own children—don’t you remember?—pleading with you, encouraging you and even demanding ¹² that your daily lives should not embarrass God but bring joy to him who invited you into his Kingdom to share his glory.

¹³ And we will never stop thanking God for this: that when we preached to you, you didn’t think of the words we spoke as being just our own, but you accepted what we said as the very Word of God—which, of course, it was—and it changed your lives when you believed it.

23 Then Jesus said to the crowds, and to his disciples, ² “You would think these Jewish leaders and these Pharisees were Moses, the way they keep making up so many laws!^{[a] 3} And of course you should obey their every whim! It may be all right to do what they say, but above anything else, don’t follow their example. For they don’t do what they tell you to do. ⁴ They load you with impossible demands that they themselves don’t even try to keep.

⁵ “Everything they do is done for show. They act holy^[b] by wearing on their arms little prayer boxes with Scripture verses inside, and by lengthening the memorial fringes of their robes. ⁶ And how they love to sit at the head table at banquets and in the reserved pews in the synagogue! ⁷ How they enjoy the deference paid them on the streets and to be called ‘Rabbi’ and ‘Master’! ⁸ Don’t ever let anyone call you that. For only God is your Rabbi and all of you are on the same level, as brothers. ⁹ And don’t address anyone here on earth as ‘Father,’ for only God in heaven should be addressed like that. ¹⁰ And don’t be called ‘Master,’ for only one is your master, even the Messiah.

¹¹ “The more lowly your service to others, the greater you are. To be the greatest, be a servant. ¹² But those who think themselves great shall be disappointed and humbled; and those who humble themselves shall be exalted.