Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
This is a special song for the music leader. The sons of Korah wrote it.
A prayer when you are away from home[a]
42 God, I need you so much!
I look for you,
as a thirsty deer looks for streams of water.
2 Deep down inside me,
I am very thirsty!
You are the God who lives for ever,
and I need life from you!
When will I be able to come near to you
and see you face to face?[b]
3 All day and all night I weep.
My tears are my only food!
My enemies say to me all the time,
‘Where is your God?’
4 When I remember how my life was before,
I am very upset and I weep.
Once I walked with a big crowd of people
to worship God in his temple.
I led the people there as we sang happy songs,
and we praised God with loud voices.[c]
5 Now I ask myself,
‘Why am I so sad and upset?’
I must wait patiently for God to help me.
Then I will praise my God once again,
because he is the one who saves me.[d]
6 Deep inside me I am very sad.
So I will turn to you, my God, from where I am.
I will pray to you from Hermon mountain
where the Jordan River begins,
and from Mizar mountain.
7 I hear your waterfalls make a noise like thunder.
It seems like all that water is pouring over me
and it knocks me down to the ground.[e]
8 Each day, the Lord shows me that he loves me
with his faithful love.
Each night he gives me a song to sing,
as I pray to the God who lives for ever.[f]
9 I say to God, who is my high rock,
‘Why have you forgotten me? Why must I be so sad?
How much longer must I continue to weep,
because my enemies do cruel things to me?’
10 My enemies laugh at me all the time.
It is like they are breaking all my bones.
They are always saying,
‘Where is your God?’
11 I ask myself again,
‘Why am I so sad and upset?’
I must wait patiently for God to help me.
Then I will praise my God once again,
because he is the one who saves me.
Moses chooses some judges
13 The next day, Moses sat down to judge people who had quarrels against each other. From morning until evening, people were coming to him with their quarrels.
14 Jethro saw all these things that Moses did to help the people. So he said, ‘You are trying to do too much! Why do you sit there alone to judge all these people during the whole day?’
15 Moses answered Jethro, ‘The people come to me to discover what God says. 16 When they quarrel, they come to me to decide who is right. I tell them what God's laws and commands teach.’
17 Jethro replied, ‘The thing that you are doing is not good. 18 You will become too tired. The people who come to you will also become tired. You cannot do all this work alone. 19 Now listen to me! I will tell you what I think will help you. God will take care of you. When people have quarrels, you must continue to speak to God on their behalf. 20 You are the person who must teach them God's laws and commands. You must show them how they should live and what they must do.
21 But you must also choose some other clever men to help you. They must be honest men who respect God. They must not want to take money from people. Choose these men to be officers with authority over groups of the people. They will be leaders of 1,000 people, or 100 people, or 50 people, or 10 people. 22 They will be able to work as judges for the people, every day. They can decide the small quarrels. But if there is a difficult problem, they must bring it to you. That will make your work easier, because they will help you with the work. 23 If you agree with my idea, and if God commands you to do it, it will help you. The work will not be too hard for you. And all these people will go home happily.’
24 Moses listened to Jethro and he did everything that Jethro had said.
25 Moses chose wise men from all the Israelites. He made them officers to lead 1,000 people, or 100 people, or 50 people, or 10 people. 26 They worked as judges for the people at all times. If there was a difficult problem, they took it to Moses for him to decide. But they themselves decided the small problems.
27 Then Moses said ‘goodbye’ to his wife's father, Jethro. Jethro returned to his own country.
15 It is true that some of these Christians are jealous of me. They want to show that they are better than me. That is why they tell people the message about Christ. But other Christians speak about Christ because they want to help me. 16 They tell people about him because they love me. They know that God has put me here in this prison. And he wants me to show people that the good news is true. 17 Those other people speak about Christ because they want to seem important. They do not really want to help people. They just want to cause trouble for me while I am here in this prison. 18 But it does not matter to me! All of them are telling people about Christ. That is the most important thing. Whether they speak because of wrong reasons or because of right reasons, they are speaking the message about Christ! Because of that, I am happy.
Yes, I will continue to be happy. 19 You are praying for me and Jesus Christ's Spirit is helping me. So I know that what has happened to me will have a good result. Yes, God will rescue me. 20 I never want to do anything that will cause me to be ashamed. I hope very much that I will never do that. I want to be brave now, as I always have been. In the way that I live, I want to show that Christ is very great. I want to do that if I continue to live. And I want to do that if I die.
21 Christ is everything that I live for. If I die, that will be even better for me.
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