Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

God is good, so thank him^[a]

David brings the Covenant Box to Jerusalem

6 David chose 30,000 of the best soldiers in Israel. ² He took them with him to Baalah, a town in Judah. He wanted to bring God's Covenant Box from there to Jerusalem. The Israelites called it by the name of the Lord Almighty. He sits as King between the two cherubs that are on the top of the Covenant Box. ³ They put the Covenant Box on a new cart. They took it out of Abinadab's house which was on the hill. Abinadab's sons, Uzzah and Ahio, were leading the new cart ⁴ which had the Covenant Box on it. Ahio walked in front of the Covenant Box. ⁵ David and all Israel's people were singing and dancing with all their strength to praise the Lord. They made music with harps, lyres, tambourines, shakers and cymbals.^[a]

⁶ They reached the place of Nacon's threshing floor. There the oxen that were pulling the cart almost fell. So Uzzah reached out to hold God's Covenant Box to stop it falling. ⁷ The Lord was very angry with Uzzah because he did not respect God's rules.^[b] He immediately knocked Uzzah down to the ground. Uzzah died there, beside the Covenant Box.

⁸ David was angry because the Lord had punished Uzzah. So he called that place ‘Perez Uzzah’. That is still its name today.^[c]

⁹ So David now became afraid of the Lord. He said, ‘The Lord's Covenant Box is too holy to come with me!’ ¹⁰ He no longer wanted to take the Lord's Covenant Box to the City of David to be with him there. Instead, he took it to the house of Obed-Edom, who came from Gath. ¹¹ The Lord's Covenant Box stayed in Obed-Edom's house for three months. During that time, the Lord blessed Obed-Edom and all the people in his house.

¹² People told King David, ‘The Lord has blessed Obed-Edom's family and everything that belongs to him, because of the Covenant Box.’

So David went back to Obed-Edom's house. He was now happy to bring the Covenant Box from there to the City of David. ¹³ The men who were carrying it walked six steps and they stopped. Then David offered a bull and a fat calf as sacrifices to God. ¹⁴ David was wearing a linen ephod.^[d] He danced with all his strength to worship the Lord. ¹⁵ He and all the Israelites brought the Lord's Covenant Box to Jerusalem. They shouted and they made a loud noise with trumpets.

24 Very early on the first day of the week, they went to the place where Joseph had put Jesus' dead body. They took with them the spices that they had prepared. ² They arrived there. They found that someone had rolled the big stone away from the hole. ³ They went inside the hole in the rock, but they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus there. ⁴ They did not understand this at all. But while they were thinking about it, two men appeared. Their clothes shone brightly like lightning. These men came and stood beside them. ⁵ So the women became very afraid and they went down low with their faces on the ground.

The men said to the women, ‘This is a place to bury dead people. You should not be looking here for someone who is alive. ⁶ Jesus is not here. He has become alive again! Remember what he said to you, while he was still with you in Galilee. ⁷ He said, “It is necessary that someone should give the Son of Man into the power of bad men. They will kill him on a cross. But three days later he will become alive again.” ’

⁸ Then the women remembered the words that Jesus had said in Galilee. ⁹ They left the hole where Jesus' body had been. They went to the 11 apostles. They told them what had happened. They also told all the other people who were there. ¹⁰ It was Mary from Magdala, Joanna, James' mother Mary, and other women who were with them that told the news about Jesus to the apostles. ¹¹ But they did not believe what the women said. They thought that it was just a silly story. ¹² But Peter got up and he ran to the hole in the rock. He bent down and he looked inside. He saw only the pieces of linen cloth that they had put around Jesus' body. There was nothing else. So he went home again. He could not understand what might have happened.