Monday in Season after Pentecost

10Verse 10. “Please, Lord,” Moses replied, “I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since You have spoken to Your servant, for I am slow of speech and tongue.” 11Verse 11. And the LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Or who makes the mute or the deaf, the sighted or the blind? Is it not I, the LORD? 12Verse 12. Now go! I will help you as you speak, and I will teach you what to say.” 13Verse 13. But Moses replied, “Please, Lord, send someone else.” 14Verse 14. Then the anger of the LORD burned against Moses, and He said, “Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well, and he is now on his way to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. 15Verse 15. You are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth. I will help both of you to speak, and I will teach you what to do. 16Verse 16. He will speak to the people for you. He will be your spokesman, and it will be as if you were God to him. 17Verse 17. But take this staff in your hand so you can perform signs with it.” 18Verse 18. Then Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Please let me return to my brothers in Egypt to see if they are still alive.” “Go in peace,” Jethro replied. 19Verse 19. Now the LORD had said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who sought to kill you are dead.” 20Verse 20. So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey, and headed back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand. 21Verse 21. The LORD instructed Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put within your power. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. 22Verse 22. Then tell Pharaoh that this is what the LORD says: ‘Israel is My firstborn son, 23Verse 23. and I told you to let My son go so that he may worship Me. But since you have refused to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son!’” 24Verse 24. Now at a lodging place along the way, the LORD met Moses and was about to kill him. 25Verse 25. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched it to Moses’ feet. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. 26Verse 26. So the LORD let him alone. (When she said, “bridegroom of blood,” she was referring to the circumcision.) 27Verse 27. Meanwhile, the LORD had said to Aaron, “Go and meet Moses in the wilderness.” So he went and met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him. 28Verse 28. And Moses told Aaron everything the LORD had sent him to say, and all the signs He had commanded him to perform. 29Verse 29. Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the Israelites, 30Verse 30. and Aaron relayed everything the LORD had said to Moses. And Moses performed the signs before the people, 31Verse 31. and they believed. And when they heard that the LORD had attended to the Israelites and had seen their affliction, they bowed down and worshiped.

2Verse 2. One evening David got up from his bed and strolled around on the roof of the palace. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing— a very beautiful woman. 3Verse 3. So David sent and inquired about the woman, and he was told, “This is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4Verse 4. Then David sent messengers to get her, and when she came to him, he slept with her. (Now she had just purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she returned home. 5Verse 5. And the woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.” 6Verse 6. At this, David sent orders to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” So Joab sent him to David. 7Verse 7. When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the troops were doing and how the war was going. 8Verse 8. Then he said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king followed him. 9Verse 9. But Uriah slept at the door of the palace with all his master’s servants; he did not go down to his house. 10Verse 10. And David was told, “Uriah did not go home.” “Haven’t you just arrived from a journey?” David asked Uriah. “Why didn’t you go home?” 11Verse 11. Uriah answered, “The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my master Joab and his soldiers are camped in the open field. How can I go to my house to eat and drink and sleep with my wife? As surely as you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing!” 12Verse 12. “Stay here one more day,” David said to Uriah, “and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah stayed in Jerusalem that day and the next. 13Verse 13. Then David invited Uriah to eat and drink with him, and he got Uriah drunk. And in the evening Uriah went out to lie down on his cot with his master’s servants, but he did not go home. 14Verse 14. The next morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15Verse 15. In the letter he wrote: “Put Uriah at the front of the fiercest battle; then withdraw from him, so that he may be struck down and killed.” 16Verse 16. So as Joab besieged the city, he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew the strongest enemy soldiers were. 17Verse 17. And when the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of David’s servants fell, and Uriah the Hittite also died. 18Verse 18. Joab sent to David a full account of the battle 19Verse 19. and instructed the messenger, “When you have finished giving the king a full account of the battle, 20Verse 20. if the king’s anger flares, he may ask you, ‘Why did you get so close to the city to fight? Did you not realize they would shoot from atop the wall? 21Verse 21. Who struck Abimelech son of Jerubbesheth ? Was it not a woman who dropped an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died in Thebez? Why did you get so close to the wall?’ If he asks you this, then you are to say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead as well.’” 22Verse 22. So the messenger set out and reported to David all that Joab had sent him to say. 23Verse 23. The messenger said to David, “The men overpowered us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. 24Verse 24. Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall, and some of the king’s servants were killed. And your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead as well.” 25Verse 25. Then David told the messenger, “Say this to Joab: ‘Do not let this matter upset you, for the sword devours one as well as another. Strengthen your attack against the city and demolish it.’ Encourage him with these words.” 26Verse 26. When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him.