Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
God takes care of his people[a]
105 Thank the Lord!
Make his name famous!
Tell people in all the nations
what he has done.
2 Sing songs and make music
to praise him!
Tell people about the miracles that he has done.
3 Boast about his holy name.[b]
Everybody who wants to worship the Lord
should be very happy!
4 Ask the Lord to help you.
Ask him to give you strength.
Always try to be near him
and worship him.
5 Remember the great things that he has done.
Remember his miracles,
and the commands that he has spoken.[c]
6 Remember that you are descendants of God's servant, Abraham.
You are Jacob's descendants,
and God has chosen you to be his people.
7 He is the Lord, our God.
He rules the whole earth with justice.
8 He will always remember the covenant
that he made with us.
He made that promise to continue for ever.
9 That is the promise that he made to Abraham,
and that he also made to Isaac.
10 He repeated it to Jacob as a law.
It was a covenant with Israel's people
that would continue for ever.[d]
11 He promised Jacob,
‘I will give to you the land of Canaan.
It will belong to you,
and to your descendants.’
12 At one time, God's people were only a few.
They lived in Canaan as strangers.
13 They travelled among different nations
and different kingdoms.
14 But the Lord did not let anyone hurt them.
He punished kings to keep his people safe.
15 He said, ‘Do not even touch the people that I have chosen to be mine.
Do not hurt my prophets.’
16 The Lord sent a famine to the land of Canaan,
so that his people had no food left to eat.
17 But he sent Joseph to Egypt
before they went there to get food.[a]
Joseph's brothers sold him as a slave.
18 In Egypt the chains on his feet hurt him.
He had a heavy piece of iron round his neck.
19 He remained a slave
until what he said would happen really happened.
Then the Lord showed that Joseph was right.
20 The powerful king of Egypt sent someone
to let Joseph go free out of prison.
21 The king made Joseph master of his palace.
Joseph took care of everything that belonged to the king.
22 The king gave him authority over his officers.
He could teach the king's leaders,
so that they would know what to do.
23 Then Jacob's family came into Egypt.
They lived as strangers in the land of Ham's descendants.[b]
24 The Lord gave to his people many children.
They became more powerful than their enemies.
25 So the Egyptians began to hate God's people.
They did cruel things to the Lord's people.
26 The Lord sent his servant Moses
to help his people in Egypt.
He also chose Aaron to help them.
27 Moses and Aaron did many miracles in Egypt,
where Ham's descendants lived.
They showed the Lord's great power to the Egyptians.
28 God made all the land become dark.
But the Egyptians did not obey God's command.
29 God caused their rivers to become blood,
and he killed their fish.
30 Frogs covered all their land.
They even went into the bedrooms of the palace!
31 The Lord commanded flies and gnats
to cover the whole country.
32 He sent hail with the rain,
and there was lightning everywhere.
33 He destroyed their vines and fig trees.
He knocked down the trees everywhere in their country.
34 He commanded many locusts to come.
There were too many locusts to count!
35 They ate all the plants in their land,
and all the crops in their fields.
36 Then the Lord killed all the firstborn sons in Egypt.
He killed the oldest son in each family.
37 So the Lord led his people out from Egypt.
They took with them valuable silver and gold things.
Nobody among the Israelite people was too weak to go.
38 The Egyptians were happy when they went,
because they were afraid of the Israelites.[c]
39 The Lord made a cloud to cover them
and a fire to give them light at night.
40 When they asked him for food,
he gave them quails to eat.
He fed them with bread from the sky.
41 He broke a rock,
so that water poured out from it.
It ran as a river through the dry places.
42 Yes, the Lord remembered the holy promise
that he had made to his servant, Abraham.
10 Then all the people wanted to throw stones at Joshua and Caleb to kill them. But the glory of the Lord appeared over the Tent of Meeting. All the Israelites could see that.
11 The Lord said to Moses, ‘These people continue to turn away from me. I did great miracles to show them my power. But still they will not trust me. 12 I will send a disease to kill them. They will not get any of the good things that I wanted to give to them. Then I will make you, Moses, the ancestor of a nation greater and more powerful than they are.’
13 Moses said to the Lord, ‘Please do not do that! You used your great power to bring these people out of Egypt. If you destroy them, the Egyptians will hear about it. 14 Then they will tell the people who live in this land about it. They know that you, Lord, are among your people. They know that you meet with your people. They know that your cloud stays over them. They know that you lead them as a pillar of cloud during the day and as a pillar of fire during the night. 15 The people in other nations have heard of your power. So now, if you kill all your people together, the people in those nations will say, 16 “The Lord could not bring those people into the land that he had seriously promised to give to them. So he killed all of them in the desert.”
17 But now, I pray that you will show how powerful you are. You yourself have said, 18 “The Lord does not quickly become angry. His faithful love for his people continues for ever. He forgives people when they turn against him and they do bad things. But if someone is guilty, he surely punishes them. And he punishes their children, their grandchildren and their grandchildren's children.”
19 So please forgive the very bad thing that these people have done. Do that because your faithful love is so great. You have forgiven these people since they left Egypt until now. So please be kind and forgive them again now.’
20 Then the Lord said, ‘I have forgiven them as you asked me to do. 21 As surely as I live, and all the earth will be full of my glory, I tell you this. 22 All these people have seen my glory. They have seen the miracles that I did in Egypt and in the desert. But they have tested me many times now to see if I would punish them. They still do not obey me. 23 So I tell you, none of them will ever see the land that I promised to give to their ancestors. None of those men who did not trust me will see that place. 24 But my servant Caleb has thought differently, and he has obeyed me completely. So I will bring him into the land that he explored. It will belong to his descendants.
Idols
10 My Christian friends, remember what happened to our Israelite ancestors. Moses led them out of Egypt long ago. While they followed Moses, they all walked under the same cloud. All of them walked across the Red Sea.[a] 2 It is like God baptized all of them in the cloud and in the sea. In that way, they became people who followed Moses. 3 All our ancestors ate the same spiritual food.[b] 4 All of them drank the same spiritual drink. They drank water from the spiritual rock that went with them. Christ was that rock.[c] 5 They all received the same help from God, but most of them did not please God. God caused most of them to die in the wilderness.[d]
6 We must learn from those things that happened to our ancestors. We must not want to do very bad things, like they did. 7 Do not worship idols, as some of them did. The Bible says: ‘The people sat down to eat and to drink. After that, they got up from their meal and they danced.’[e]
8 Nor must we ever have sex in wrong ways. Some of our ancestors did that, and 23,000 of them died in one day as a result.[f]
9 Nor must we do bad things to see whether the Lord will punish us. Some of our ancestors did that, and God sent snakes to destroy them.[g]
10 Do not complain against God. Some of our ancestors spoke like that, and God sent an angel of death to kill them.[h]
11 All these things happened to our ancestors so that we would learn from them. They are written in the Bible to teach us important lessons. We are people who live at a time when all things will become complete.
12 If you think that you are standing strongly, be careful! Do not fall down! 13 You may often want to do wrong things. The things that are difficult for you are difficult for other people too. Remember that God is always there to help you. He will not let any bad thing be too difficult for you. He will help you to stand against it. When you want to do something wrong, God will make you strong in your spirit. He will show you a way out, so that you do not do anything wrong.
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