Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 105
God’s Faithfulness to Israel
1 O give thanks to the Lord; call on his name;
make known his deeds among the peoples.(A)
2 Sing to him, sing praises to him;
tell of all his wonderful works.(B)
3 Glory in his holy name;
let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice.(C)
4 Seek the Lord and his strength;
seek his presence continually.(D)
5 Remember the wonderful works he has done,
his miracles and the judgments he has uttered,(E)
6 O offspring of his servant Abraham,[a]
children of Jacob, his chosen ones.
7 He is the Lord our God;
his judgments are in all the earth.(F)
8 He is mindful of his covenant forever,
of the word that he commanded for a thousand generations,
9 the covenant that he made with Abraham,
his sworn promise to Isaac,(G)
10 which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute,
to Israel as an everlasting covenant,(H)
11 saying, “To you I will give the land of Canaan
as your portion for an inheritance.”(I)
16 When he summoned famine against the land
and cut off every supply of bread,[a](A)
17 he had sent a man ahead of them,
Joseph, who had been sold as a slave.(B)
18 His feet were hurt with fetters;
his neck was put in a collar of iron;(C)
19 until what he had said came to pass,
the word of the Lord kept testing him.(D)
20 The king sent and released him;
the ruler of the peoples set him free.(E)
21 He made him lord of his house
and ruler of all his possessions,(F)
22 to instruct[b] his officials at his pleasure
and to teach his elders wisdom.
23 Then Israel came to Egypt;
Jacob lived as an alien in the land of Ham.(G)
24 And the Lord made his people very fruitful
and made them stronger than their foes,(H)
25 whose hearts he then turned to hate his people,
to deal craftily with his servants.(I)
26 He sent his servant Moses
and Aaron, whom he had chosen.(J)
27 They performed his signs among them
and miracles in the land of Ham.(K)
28 He sent darkness and made the land dark;
they rebelled[c] against his words.(L)
29 He turned their waters into blood
and caused their fish to die.(M)
30 Their land swarmed with frogs,
even in the chambers of their kings.(N)
31 He spoke, and there came swarms of flies
and gnats throughout their country.(O)
32 He gave them hail for rain
and lightning that flashed through their land.(P)
33 He struck their vines and fig trees
and shattered the trees of their country.
34 He spoke, and the locusts came,
and young locusts without number;(Q)
35 they devoured all the vegetation in their land
and ate up the fruit of their ground.
36 He struck down all the firstborn in their land,
the first issue of all their strength.(R)
37 Then he brought Israel[d] out with silver and gold,
and there was no one among their tribes who stumbled.(S)
38 Egypt was glad when they departed,
for dread of them had fallen upon it.(T)
39 He spread a cloud for a covering
and fire to give light by night.(U)
40 They asked, and he brought quails
and gave them food from heaven in abundance.(V)
41 He opened the rock, and water gushed out;
it flowed through the desert like a river.(W)
42 For he remembered his holy promise
and Abraham, his servant.(A)
The Command to Leave Sinai
33 The Lord said to Moses, “Go, leave this place, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, and go to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give it.’(A) 2 I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.(B) 3 Go up[a] to a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up among you, or I would consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”(C)
4 When the people heard these harsh words, they mourned, and no one put on ornaments.(D) 5 For the Lord had said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘You are a stiff-necked people; if for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now take off your ornaments, and I will decide what to do to you.’ ” 6 Therefore the Israelites stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.
The Example of Abraham
4 What then are we to say was gained by[a] Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.(A) 3 For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed[b] God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.”(B) 4 Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due.(C) 5 But to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 6 So also David pronounces a blessing on those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:
7 “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven
and whose sins are covered;(D)
8 blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.”
9 Is this blessing, then, pronounced only on the circumcised or also on the uncircumcised? We say, “Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” 10 How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after but before he was circumcised. 11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith[c] while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the ancestor of all who believe[d] without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them,(E) 12 and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised.
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.