Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁸ Now there rose up a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. ⁹ He said to his people, “Surely, the people of the sons of Israel are more numerous and powerful than we. ¹⁰ Come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass that when any war breaks out, they also join our enemies, and fight against us, and escape from the land.”

¹¹ Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their labor. They built for Pharaoh storage cities: Pithom and Rameses. ¹² But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew so that as a result they abhorred the sons of Israel. ¹³ The Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigor, ¹⁴ and they made their lives bitter with hard service—in mortar and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field, all their service in which they made them serve was with rigor.

¹⁵ The king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of which the name of one was Shiphrah, and the name of the other Puah, ¹⁶ and he said, “When you perform the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the stools, if it is a son, then you must kill him, but if it is a daughter, then she may live.” ¹⁷ However, the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but kept the male children alive. ¹⁸ The king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing and preserved the male children’s lives?”

¹⁹ The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives come to them.”

²⁰ Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. ²¹ So it happened that because the midwives feared God, He gave them families.

²² Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, “You must cast every son that is born into the river, and you must preserve every daughter’s life.”

The Birth of Moses

2 Now a man of the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi. ² And the woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw him, that he was a beautiful child, she hid him three months. ³ When she could no longer hide him, she took for him a container made of bulrushes and daubed it with tar and with pitch. She then put the child in it and set it in the reeds by the river’s bank. ⁴ Then his sister stood afar off so that she might know what would happen to him.

⁵ The daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river while her maidens walked along by the river’s side, and when she saw the container among the reeds, she sent her maid, and she retrieved it. ⁶ When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying. She had compassion on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.”

⁷ Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call for you a nursing woman of the Hebrew women so that she may nurse the child for you?”

⁸ And Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go.” So the young girl went and called the child’s mother. ⁹ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away, and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him. ¹⁰ Now the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter, and he became her son. And she called his name Moses and said, “Because I drew him out of the water.”

Psalm 124

A Song of Ascents. Of David.

The New Life in Christ

12 I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service of worship. ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

³ For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sound judgment, according to the measure of faith God has distributed to every man. ⁴ For just as we have many parts in one body, and not all parts have the same function, ⁵ so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and all are parts of one another. ⁶ We have diverse gifts according to the grace that is given to us: if prophecy, according to the proportion of faith; ⁷ if service, in serving; he who teaches, in teaching; ⁸ he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with generosity; he who rules, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.

Peter’s Declaration About Jesus^(A)

¹³ When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”

¹⁴ They said, “Some say that You are John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

¹⁵ He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

¹⁶ Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷ Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. ¹⁸ And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹ I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” ²⁰ Then He commanded His disciples to tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ.