Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 105
1 Come, offer thanks to the Eternal; invoke His holy name.
Tell other people about the things He has done.
2 Sing songs of praise to Him;
tell stories of all His miracles.
3 Revel in His holy name.
May the hearts of the people who seek the Eternal celebrate and experience great joy.
4 Seek the Eternal and His power;
look to His face constantly.
5 Remember the wonderful things He has done,
His miracles and the wise decisions He has made,
6 O children of Abraham, His servant;
O children of Jacob, His chosen people!
7 He is the Eternal, our True God;
His justice extends to every corner of the earth.
8 He keeps His covenant promises forever
and remembers the word He spoke to a thousand generations—
9 The covenant He made with Abraham
and His sworn oath to Isaac, his son.
10 Then God confirmed it to Jacob—decreed it so—
to Israel He promised a never-ending covenant,
11 Saying, “I will give you the land of Canaan
as your part; it will be your inheritance.”
12 When God’s people were only a few in number—
indeed, very few—they were strangers in a foreign land.
13 They roamed from place to place,
from one kingdom to another.
14 God didn’t allow anyone to tyrannize them;
He rebuked kings in order to protect His people:
15 “Do not lay a hand on My anointed people;
do not do any harm to My prophets.”
16 He ordered famine to grip the land and
cut them off from their supply of bread.
17 But long before, He had sent a man ahead of them:
Joseph, who had been sold into slavery.[a]
18 At first, his masters shackled his feet with chains,
placed his neck into a collar of iron.
19 That was until the Eternal’s promises came to pass;
His word tested Joseph and proved him worthy.
20 The king sent out the order to release him from prison;
the ruler of Egypt liberated him from the chains.
21 Then he put Joseph in charge of the royal household,
made him ruler of all the royal possessions,
22 Allowed him to imprison the royal officials whenever he saw fit
and impart wisdom to the elders in the land.
23 Then, when the time was right, Israel also went to Egypt;
Jacob resided as an alien in the land of Ham.
24 And while they were there, the Eternal made His people prosperous;
He made them stronger than their enemies.
25 He turned the Egyptians’ hearts against His people[b]
to cheat and scheme against His servants.
26 Then, He sent His servant Moses
and Aaron, the men He had chosen.
27 They did all the signs He planned for them to do among the Egyptians,
and they performed miracles in the land of Ham.
28 He sent darkness to cover the land;
they did not stray from His word.
29 At His command, their waters turned to blood;
their fish began to die.
30 Throngs of frogs covered the land,
invading even in the chambers of their kings.
31 At His command, a swarm of flies arrived,
and gnats came over all their land.
32 He caused hail to fall instead of rain;
lightning flashed over all their land.
33 He struck their vines and their fig trees;
He destroyed the trees over all their land.
34 At His command, locusts came;
young locusts marched beyond number,
35 And they ate up all the plants that grew
and all the fruits over their land.
36 He also brought death to the firstborn in all their land,
the first offspring of each man.
37 Then He brought His people out of slavery, weighed down with silver and gold;
and of all His tribes,
not one of them stumbled, not one was left behind.
38 Egypt was glad to see them go,
for Pharaoh’s people had been overcome with fear of them.
39 He spread out a cloud to cover His people
and sent a fire to light their way at night.
40 They asked, and He sent them coveys of quail,
satisfying their hunger with the food of heaven.
41 He split the rock and water poured out;
it flowed like a river through the desert.
42 For He remembered His holy covenant
with Abraham, His servant.
10 But the rest of the Israelites were not convinced. Enraged, the crowd moved to stone Joshua and Caleb. Suddenly, the glory of the Eternal swept into the congregation tent in front of them all.
What a sad time it is for the Israelites! Joshua and Caleb have pleaded for courage among the people, and Moses and Aaron must now plead for patience on the part of the Lord. The Israelites stand on the edge of God’s promise, and they can’t find the courage to believe and to move forward by faith into the promise. Because of their reluctance to believe, they must wander through this wilderness with only God to supply their basic needs until He has purged the nation of those who lack faith. The next 38 years will cleanse the nation and develop the character each person needs to claim the promises of God. This same two-step process is repeated throughout the Bible: refine and cleanse while building the necessary faith. Unfortunately, the fire necessary for refinement is normally painful.
Eternal One (to Moses): 11 How many times will this ungrateful people turn their backs to Me? How long will they persist in their faithlessness, refusing to recognize all the wondrous signs I performed in their midst? 12 I will crush them with dreadful sickness and disinherit them from Me and the land. However, I will accept you and make you into a fearsome nation, far greater and more impressive than they might be or could ever dream of being.
Moses: 13 If You kill them, the Egyptians (whom You forced Your people away from) will get wind of it, 14 and they’ll tell the people of this new world, because all have already heard that You, O Eternal One, are present among Your people here, that You’ve been seen face-to-face, and that You personally guide them by a cloud-column during the day and a fire-column at night. 15 If You wipe out these, Your chosen people, in one fell swoop, then Your reputation among the other nations will be shot. All of those other peoples who have heard about You will say, 16 “The Eternal One couldn’t finish the job. He couldn’t bring the people into the land He’d promised to them, so He slaughtered them in the desert.” 17 Instead, demonstrate that great power of Yours when You declared, 18 “I am slow to get angry and overflow with consistently boundless love. I forgive wrongdoing and waywardness, but I don’t overlook the necessity for justice, so I punish the guilty ones’ third and fourth coming generations.” 19 So, in light of the greatness of Your unwavering love, forgive this people’s wrongdoing just as You’ve done before—from Egypt all the way here.
Eternal One: 20 I have pardoned them as you’ve asked Me to do. 21 But as I live, the earth will be filled with My brilliant glory; 22-23 this particular generation will never get to enjoy the land I promised to their ancestors so long ago. Although they witnessed My glory and signs firsthand, and the amazing feats I accomplished on their behalf in Egypt and on this desert sojourn, they tested Me over and over again, even 10 times, and even directly disobeyed. None of the people who have turned their backs on Me will ever see the land. 24 For Caleb, though, it’s a different matter. He’s distinct from the others by having a different spirit and has followed My lead wholeheartedly. I will make sure that he is able to enter the land and to live in it—he and his descendants after him.
10 I wouldn’t want you to be ignorant of our history, brothers and sisters. Our ancestors were once safeguarded under a miraculous cloud in the wilderness and brought safely through the sea. 2 Enveloped in water by cloud and by sea, they were, you might say, ritually cleansed into Moses through baptism.[a] 3 Together they were sustained supernaturally: they all ate the same spiritual food, manna; 4 and they all drank the same spiritual water, flowing from a spiritual rock that was always with them, for the rock was the Anointed One, our Liberating King. 5 Despite all of this, they were punished in the wilderness because God was unhappy with most of them.
6 Look at what happened to them as an example; it’s right there in the Scriptures so that we won’t make the same mistakes and hunger after evil as they did. So here’s my advice: 7 don’t degrade yourselves by worshiping anything less than the living God as some of them did. Remember it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and then rose up in dance and play.”[b] 8 We must be careful not to engage in sexual sins as some of them did. In one day, 23,000 died because of sin.[c] 9 None of us must test the limits of the Lord’s patience. Some of the Israelites did, and serpents bit them and killed them. 10 You need to stop your groaning and whining. Remember the story. Some of them complained, and the messenger of death came for them and destroyed them. 11 All these things happened for a reason: to sound a warning. They were written down and passed down to us to teach us. They were meant especially for us because the beginning of the end is happening in our time. 12 So let even the most confident believers remember their examples and be very careful not to fall as some of them did.
One of the strengths of the Jewish people is their corporate identity that comes from belonging to a unique, suffering people deeply loved by God. The tendency for the new, non-Jewish believers may be to create a new identity among themselves because they lack the sense of belonging shared by Israel’s descendants. A new day is dawning, a day when all may come to God regardless of ethnicity, locale, or social class. Believers in Corinth are not part of a new movement; they are a fresh expression of the historic movement of God.
The twenty-first century church needs to hear this truth today as much as the church in Corinth did two millennia ago. The world has changed drastically since the times of Abraham, David, John the Baptist, and even Martin Luther. In the midst of radical economic and technological advances, some within the church are embracing new or contemporary practices and regarding them as somehow superior to ancient and historic practices. Paul is challenging this idea and calling all believers to see themselves as a part of the local, global, and historic church.
13 Any temptation you face will be nothing new. But God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can handle. But He always provides a way of escape so that you will be able to endure and keep moving forward.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.