Bible Browser

4 From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea,^* to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way. ⁵The people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.’ ⁶Then the Lord sent poisonous^* serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died. ⁷The people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.’ So Moses prayed for the people. ⁸And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a poisonous^* serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.’ ⁹So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

Psalm 78

God’s Goodness and Israel’s Ingratitude

A Maskil of Asaph.
¹ Give ear, O my people, to my teaching;
   incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
² I will open my mouth in a parable;
   I will utter dark sayings from of old,
³⁴ When he killed them, they sought for him;
   they repented and sought God earnestly.
³⁵ They remembered that God was their rock,
   the Most High God their redeemer.
³⁶ But they flattered him with their mouths;
   they lied to him with their tongues.
³⁷ Their heart was not steadfast towards him;
   they were not true to his covenant.
³⁸ Yet he, being compassionate,
   forgave their iniquity,
   and did not destroy them;
often he restrained his anger,
   and did not stir up all his wrath.

⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death—
   even death on a cross.

⁹ Therefore God also highly exalted him
   and gave him the name
   that is above every name,
¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus
   every knee should bend,
   in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue should confess
   that Jesus Christ is Lord,
   to the glory of God the Father.

¹³No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.^{* 14}And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.^*

16 ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

17 ‘Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.