Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
God and His People(A)
105 Give thanks to the Lord,
proclaim his greatness;
tell the nations what he has done.
2 Sing praise to the Lord;
tell the wonderful things he has done.
3 Be glad that we belong to him;
let all who worship him rejoice.
4 Go to the Lord for help;
and worship him continually.
5-6 You descendants of Abraham, his servant;
you descendants of Jacob, the man he chose:
remember the miracles that God performed
and the judgments that he gave.
7 The Lord is our God;
his commands are for all the world.
8 He will keep his covenant forever,
his promises for a thousand generations.
9 (B)He will keep the agreement he made with Abraham
and his promise to Isaac.
10 (C)The Lord made a covenant with Jacob,
one that will last forever.
11 “I will give you the land of Canaan,” he said.
“It will be your own possession.”
12 God's people were few in number,
strangers in the land of Canaan.
13 They wandered from country to country,
from one kingdom to another.
14 (D)But God let no one oppress them;
to protect them, he warned the kings:
15 “Don't harm my chosen servants;
do not touch my prophets.”
16 (A)The Lord sent famine to their country
and took away all their food.
17 (B)But he sent a man ahead of them,
Joseph, who had been sold as a slave.
18 (C)His feet were kept in chains,
and an iron collar was around his neck,
19 until what he had predicted came true.
The word of the Lord proved him right.
20 (D)Then the king of Egypt had him released;
the ruler of nations set him free.
21 (E)He put him in charge of his government
and made him ruler over all the land,
22 with power over the king's officials
and authority to instruct his advisers.
23 (F)Then Jacob went to Egypt
and settled in that country.
24 (G)The Lord gave many children to his people
and made them stronger than their enemies.
25 He made the Egyptians hate his people
and treat his servants with deceit.
26 (H)Then he sent his servant Moses,
and Aaron, whom he had chosen.
27 They did God's mighty acts
and performed miracles in Egypt.
28 (I)God sent darkness on the country,
but the Egyptians did not obey[a] his command.
29 (J)He turned their rivers into blood
and killed all their fish.
30 (K)Their country was overrun with frogs;
even the palace was filled with them.
31 (L)God commanded, and flies and gnats
swarmed throughout the whole country.
32 (M)He sent hail and lightning on their land
instead of rain;
33 he destroyed their grapevines and fig trees
and broke down all the trees.
34 (N)He commanded, and the locusts came,
countless millions of them;
35 they ate all the plants in the land;
they ate all the crops.
36 (O)He killed the first-born sons
of all the families of Egypt.
37 (P)Then he led the Israelites out;
they carried silver and gold,
and all of them were healthy and strong.
38 The Egyptians were afraid of them
and were glad when they left.
39 (Q)God put a cloud over his people
and a fire at night to give them light.
40 (R)They[b] asked, and he sent quails;
he gave them food from heaven to satisfy them.
41 (S)He opened a rock, and water gushed out,
flowing through the desert like a river.
42 He remembered his sacred promise
to Abraham his servant.
10 The whole community was threatening to stone them to death, but suddenly the people saw the dazzling light of the Lord's presence appear over the Tent.
Moses Prays for the People
11 The Lord said to Moses, “How much longer will these people reject me? How much longer will they refuse to trust in me, even though I have performed so many miracles among them? 12 I will send an epidemic and destroy them, but I will make you the father of a nation that is larger and more powerful than they are!”
13 (A)But Moses said to the Lord, “You brought these people out of Egypt by your power. When the Egyptians hear what you have done to your people, 14 they will tell it to the people who live in this land. These people have already heard that you, Lord, are with us, that you appear in plain sight when your cloud stops over us, and that you go before us in a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. 15 Now if you kill all your people, the nations who have heard of your fame will say 16 that you killed your people in the wilderness because you were not able to bring them into the land you promised to give them. 17 So now, Lord, I pray, show us your power and do what you promised when you said, 18 (B)‘I, the Lord, am not easily angered, and I show great love and faithfulness and forgive sin and rebellion. Yet I will not fail to punish children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for the sins of their parents.’ 19 And now, Lord, according to the greatness of your unchanging love, forgive, I pray, the sin of these people, just as you have forgiven them ever since they left Egypt.”
20 The Lord answered, “I will forgive them, as you have asked. 21 (C)But I promise that as surely as I live and as surely as my presence fills the earth, 22 none of these people will live to enter that land. They have seen the dazzling light of my presence and the miracles that I performed in Egypt and in the wilderness, but they have tried my patience over and over again and have refused to obey me. 23 They will never enter the land which I promised to their ancestors. None of those who have rejected me will ever enter it. 24 (D)But because my servant Caleb has a different attitude and has remained loyal to me, I will bring him into the land which he explored, and his descendants will possess the land
Warnings against Idols
10 (A)I want you to remember, my friends, what happened to our ancestors who followed Moses. They were all under the protection of the cloud, and all passed safely through the Red Sea. 2 In the cloud and in the sea they were all baptized as followers of Moses. 3 (B)All ate the same spiritual bread 4 (C)and drank the same spiritual drink. They drank from the spiritual rock that went with them; and that rock was Christ himself. 5 (D)But even then God was not pleased with most of them, and so their dead bodies were scattered over the desert.
6 (E)Now, all of this is an example for us, to warn us not to desire evil things, as they did, 7 (F)nor to worship idols, as some of them did. As the scripture says, “The people sat down to a feast which turned into an orgy of drinking and sex.” 8 (G)We must not be guilty of sexual immorality, as some of them were—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them fell dead. 9 (H)We must not put the Lord[a] to the test, as some of them did—and they were killed by snakes. 10 (I)We must not complain, as some of them did—and they were destroyed by the Angel of Death.
11 All these things happened to them as examples for others, and they were written down as a warning for us. For we live at a time when the end is about to come.
12 If you think you are standing firm you had better be careful that you do not fall. 13 (J)Every test that you have experienced is the kind that normally comes to people. But God keeps his promise, and he will not allow you to be tested beyond your power to remain firm; at the time you are put to the test, he will give you the strength to endure it, and so provide you with a way out.
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.