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Psalm 78

1  Hear my teaching, O my people; ♦︎
   incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2  I will open my mouth in a parable; ♦︎
   I will pour forth mysteries from of old,
3  Such as we have heard and known, ♦︎
   which our forebears have told us.
4  We will not hide from their children,
      but will recount to generations to come, ♦︎
   the praises of the Lord and his power
      and the wonderful works he has done.
52  But he led out his people like sheep ♦︎
   and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
53  He led them to safety and they were not afraid, ♦︎
   but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
54  He brought them to his holy place, ♦︎
   the mountain which his right hand took in possession.
55  He drove out the nations before them
      and shared out to them their inheritance; ♦︎
   he settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
56  Yet still they tested God Most High
      and rebelled against him, ♦︎
   and would not keep his commandments.
57  They turned back and fell away like their forebears, ♦︎
   starting aside like an unstrung bow.
58  They grieved him with their hill altars ♦︎
   and provoked him to displeasure with their idols.
59  God heard and was greatly angered, ♦︎
   and utterly rejected Israel.
60  He forsook the tabernacle at Shiloh, ♦︎
   the tent of his presence on earth.
61  He gave the ark of his strength into captivity, ♦︎
   his splendour into the adversary’s hand.
62  He delivered his people to the sword ♦︎
   and raged against his inheritance.
63  The fire consumed their young men; ♦︎
   there was no one to lament their maidens.
64  Their priests fell by the sword, ♦︎
   and their widows made no lamentation.
65  Then the Lord woke as out of sleep, ♦︎
   like a warrior who had been overcome with wine.
66  He struck his enemies from behind ♦︎
   and put them to perpetual shame.
67  He rejected the tent of Joseph ♦︎
   and chose not the tribe of Ephraim,
68  But he chose the tribe of Judah ♦︎
   and the hill of Zion, which he loved.
69  And there he built his sanctuary like the heights of heaven, ♦︎
   like the earth which he founded for ever.
70  He chose David also, his servant, ♦︎
   and took him away from the sheepfolds.
71  From following the ewes with their lambs he took him, ♦︎
   that he might shepherd Jacob his people
      and Israel his inheritance.
72  So he shepherded them with a devoted heart ♦︎
   and with skilful hands he guided them.

David and the Holy Bread

21^*David came to Nob to the priest Ahimelech. Ahimelech came trembling to meet David, and said to him, ‘Why are you alone, and no one with you?’ ²David said to the priest Ahimelech, ‘The king has charged me with a matter, and said to me, “No one must know anything of the matter about which I send you, and with which I have charged you.” I have made an appointment^* with the young men for such and such a place. ³Now then, what have you at hand? Give me five loaves of bread, or whatever is here.’ ⁴The priest answered David, ‘I have no ordinary bread at hand, only holy bread—provided that the young men have kept themselves from women.’ ⁵David answered the priest, ‘Indeed, women have been kept from us as always when I go on an expedition; the vessels of the young men are holy even when it is a common journey; how much more today will their vessels be holy?’ ⁶So the priest gave him the holy bread; for there was no bread there except the bread of the Presence, which is removed from before the Lord to be replaced by hot bread on the day it is taken away.

Jesus Heals on the Sabbath

5After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew^* Beth-zatha,^* which has five porticoes. ³In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralysed.^{* 5}One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. ⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’ ⁷The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.’ ⁸Jesus said to him, ‘Stand up, take your mat and walk.’ ⁹At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.

Now that day was a sabbath. ¹⁰So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, ‘It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.’ ¹¹But he answered them, ‘The man who made me well said to me, “Take up your mat and walk.” ’ ¹²They asked him, ‘Who is the man who said to you, “Take it up and walk”?’ ¹³Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in^* the crowd that was there. ¹⁴Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.’ ¹⁵The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. ¹⁶Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath. ¹⁷But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is still working, and I also am working.’ ¹⁸For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.