The Servant’s Humiliation and Vindication

Taming the Tongue

3 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will face stricter judgment.^{(A) 2} For all of us make many mistakes. Anyone who makes no mistakes in speaking is mature,^[a] able to keep the whole body in check with a bridle.^{(B) 3} If we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we guide their whole bodies. ⁴ Or look at ships: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, yet they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. ⁵ So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great exploits.

How great a forest is set ablaze by a such a small fire!^{(C) 6} And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of life, and is itself set on fire by hell.^{[b](D) 7} For every species of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by the human species, ⁸ but no one can tame the tongue—a restless^[c] evil, full of deadly poison.^{(E) 9} With it we bless the Lord^[d] and Father, and with it we curse people, made in the likeness of God.^{(F) 10} From the same mouth comes a blessing and a curse. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. ¹¹ Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? ¹² Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

Peter’s Declaration about Jesus

²⁷ Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?”^{(A) 28} And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.”^{(B) 29} He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.”^{[a](C) 30} And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.^(D)

Jesus Foretells His Death and Resurrection

³¹ Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. ³² He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.^{(E) 33} But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”^(F)

³⁴ He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If any wish to come^[b] after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.^{(G) 35} For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,^[c] will save it.^{(H) 36} For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷ Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? ³⁸ Those who are ashamed of me and of my words^[d] in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”^(I)