Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
91 You can go to God Most High to hide.
You can go to God All-Powerful for protection.
2 I say to the Lord, “You are my place of safety, my fortress.
My God, I trust in you.”
9 You trust in the Lord for protection.
You have made God Most High your place of safety.
10 So nothing bad will happen to you.
No diseases will come near your home.
11 He will command his angels to protect you wherever you go.
12 Their hands will catch you
so that you will not hit your foot on a rock.
13 You will have power to trample on lions
and poisonous snakes.
14 The Lord says, “If someone trusts me, I will save them.
I will protect my followers who call to me for help.
15 When my followers call to me, I will answer them.
I will be with them when they are in trouble.
I will rescue them and honor them.
16 I will give my followers a long life
and show them my power to save.”
10 So the Egyptian slave masters and the Hebrew foremen went to the Israelites and said, “Pharaoh has decided that he will not give you straw for your bricks. 11 You must go and get the straw for yourselves. So go and find straw, but you must still make as many bricks as you made before.”
12 So the people went everywhere in Egypt looking for straw. 13 The slave masters forced the people to work even harder. They forced the people to make as many bricks as before. 14 The Egyptian slave masters had chosen the Hebrew foremen and had made them responsible for the work the people did. The Egyptian slave masters beat these foremen and said to them, “Why aren’t you making as many bricks as you made in the past? If you could do it then, you can do it now!”
15 Then the Hebrew foremen went to Pharaoh. They complained and said, “We are your servants. Why are you treating us like this? 16 You give us no straw, but you tell us to make as many bricks as before. And now our masters are beating us. Your people are wrong for doing this.”
17 Pharaoh answered, “You are lazy, and you don’t want to work! That is why you ask me to let you go. And that is why you want to leave here and make sacrifices to the Lord. 18 Now, go back to work! We will not give you any straw. And you must still make as many bricks as you did before.”
19 The Hebrew foremen knew they were in trouble, because the Pharaoh had told them, “You must still make as many bricks as you made before.”
20 When they were leaving the meeting with Pharaoh, they passed Moses and Aaron. Moses and Aaron were waiting for them. 21 So they said to Moses and Aaron, “May the Lord judge and punish you for what you did! You made Pharaoh and his rulers hate us. You have given them an excuse to kill us.”
Moses Complains to God
22 Then Moses prayed to the Lord and said, “Lord, why have you done this terrible thing to your people? Why did you send me here? 23 I went to Pharaoh and said what you told me to say. But since that time he has made the people suffer, and you have done nothing to help them!”
30 “Forty years later Moses was in the desert near Mount Sinai. An angel appeared to him in the flame of a burning bush. 31 When Moses saw this, he was amazed. He went near to look closer at it. He heard a voice; it was the Lord’s. 32 The Lord said, ‘I am the same God your ancestors had—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’[a] Moses began to shake with fear. He was afraid to look at the bush.
33 “The Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, because the place where you are now standing is holy ground. 34 I have seen my people suffer much in Egypt. I have heard my people crying and have come down to save them. Come now, Moses, I am sending you back to Egypt.’[b]
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