Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Psalm 78
Lessons from Israel’s Past
A Maskil of Asaph.(A)
1 My people, hear my instruction;
listen to the words from my mouth.(B)
2 I will declare wise sayings;
I will speak mysteries from the past(C)—
3 things we have heard and known
and that our ancestors have passed down to us.(D)
4 We will not hide them from their children,
but will tell a future generation
the praiseworthy acts of the Lord,
his might, and the wondrous works
he has performed.(E)
12 He worked wonders in the sight of their ancestors
in the land of Egypt, the territory of Zoan.(A)
13 He split the sea and brought them across;
the water stood firm like a wall.(B)
14 He led them with a cloud by day
and with a fiery light throughout the night.(C)
15 He split rocks in the wilderness
and gave them drink as abundant as the depths.(D)
16 He brought streams out of the stone
and made water flow down like rivers.(E)
17 This is what the Lord, your Redeemer,(A) the Holy One of Israel(B) says:
I am the Lord your God,
who teaches you for your benefit,
who leads you in the way you should go.
18 If only you had paid attention to my commands.
Then your peace would have been like a river,(C)
and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.(D)
19 Your descendants would have been as countless as the sand,(E)
and the offspring of your body like its grains;
their name would not be cut off
or eliminated from my presence.
20 Leave Babylon,
flee from the Chaldeans!
Declare with a shout of joy,
proclaim this,
let it go out to the end of the earth;
announce,
“The Lord has redeemed his servant(F) Jacob!”
21 They did not thirst
when he led them through the deserts;
he made water flow from the rock for them;(G)
he split the rock, and water gushed out.
11 Don’t criticize one another, brothers and sisters. Anyone who defames or judges a fellow believer[a] defames and judges the law. If you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.(A) 12 There is one lawgiver and judge[b] who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?(B)
Our Will and God’s Will
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.”(C) 14 Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring—what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes.(D)
15 Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.(E)
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