Isaiah 42:1-17
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
The Servant, a Light to the Nations
42 Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.(A)
2 He will not cry out or lift up his voice
or make it heard in the street;
3 a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.(B)
4 He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the earth,
and the coastlands wait for his teaching.(C)
5 Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people upon it
and spirit to those who walk in it:(D)
6 I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness;
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,[a]
a light to the nations,(E)
7 to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.(F)
8 I am the Lord; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to idols.(G)
9 See, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth,
I tell you of them.(H)
A Hymn of Praise
10 Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise from the end of the earth!
Let the sea roar[b] and all that fills it,
the coastlands and their inhabitants.(I)
11 Let the desert and its towns lift up their voice,
the villages that Kedar inhabits;
let the inhabitants of Sela shout for joy;
let them shout from the tops of the mountains.
12 Let them give glory to the Lord
and declare his praise in the coastlands.(J)
13 The Lord goes forth like a soldier;
like a warrior he stirs up his fury;
he cries out; he shouts aloud;
he shows himself mighty against his foes.(K)
14 For a long time I have held my peace;
I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out like a woman in labor;
I will gasp and pant.(L)
15 I will lay waste mountains and hills
and dry up all their herbage;
I will turn the rivers into islands
and dry up the pools.(M)
16 I will lead the blind
by a road they do not know;
by paths they have not known
I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light,
the rough places into level ground.
These are the things I will do,
and I will not forsake them.(N)
17 They shall be turned back and utterly put to shame—
those who trust in carved images,
who say to cast images,
“You are our gods.”(O)
Mark 7:1-23
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
The Tradition of the Elders
7 Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2 they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they wash their hands,[a] thus observing the tradition of the elders,(A) 4 and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash,[b] and there are also many other traditions that they observe: the washing of cups and pots and bronze kettles and beds.[c])(B) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?”(C) 6 He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;(D)
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’
8 “You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”(E)
9 Then he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition!(F) 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.’(G) 11 But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, ‘Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban’ (that is, an offering to God[d]),(H) 12 then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, 13 thus nullifying the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.”
14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”[e]
17 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 He said to them, “So, are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, 19 since it enters not the heart but the stomach and goes out into the sewer?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, “It is what comes out of a person that defiles. 21 For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Read full chapterFootnotes
Isaiah 42:18-43:13
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
18 Listen, you who are deaf,
and you who are blind, look up and see!
19 Who is blind but my servant
or deaf like my messenger whom I send?
Who is blind like my dedicated one
or blind like the servant of the Lord?(A)
20 He sees many things, but he does[a] not observe them;
his ears are open, but he does not hear.(B)
Israel’s Disobedience
21 The Lord was pleased, for the sake of his righteousness,
to magnify his teaching and make it glorious.(C)
22 But this is a people robbed and plundered;
all of them are trapped in holes
and hidden in prisons;
they have become a prey with no one to rescue,
a spoil with no one to say, “Restore!”(D)
23 Who among you will give heed to this;
who will attend and listen for the time to come?
24 Who gave up Jacob to the spoiler
and Israel to the robbers?
Was it not the Lord, against whom they sinned,[b]
in whose ways they would not walk,
and whose law they would not obey?(E)
25 So he poured upon him the heat of his anger
and the fury of war;
it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand;
it burned him, but he did not take it to heart.(F)
Restoration and Protection Promised
43 But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are mine.(G)
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you,
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.(H)
3 For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
Cush and Seba in exchange for you.(I)
4 Because you are precious in my sight
and honored and I love you,
I give people in return for you,
nations in exchange for your life.(J)
5 Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you;(K)
6 I will say to the north, “Give them up,”
and to the south, “Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
and my daughters from the end of the earth—(L)
7 everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.”(M)
8 Bring forth the people who are blind yet have eyes,
who are deaf yet have ears!(N)
9 Let all the nations gather together,
and let the peoples assemble.
Who among them declared this
and foretold to us the former things?
Let them bring their witnesses to justify them,
and let them hear and say, “It is true.”(O)
10 You are my witnesses, says the Lord,
and my servant whom I have chosen,
so that you may know and believe me
and understand that I am he.
Before me no god was formed,
nor shall there be any after me.(P)
11 I, I am the Lord,
and besides me there is no savior.(Q)
12 I am the one who declared and saved and proclaimed,
not some strange god among you;
you are my witnesses, says the Lord, and I am God.(R)
13 Indeed, since that day I am he;
there is no one who can deliver from my hand;
I work, and who can hinder it?(S)
Revelation 18
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
The Fall of Babylon
18 After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined by his splendor.(A) 2 He called out with a mighty voice,
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!
It has become a dwelling place of demons,
a haunt of every foul spirit,
a haunt of every foul bird,
a haunt of every foul and hateful beast.[a](B)
3 For all the nations have fallen[b]
from the wine of the wrath of her prostitution,
and the kings of the earth have engaged in sexual immorality[c] with her,
and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power[d] of her luxury.”(C)
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,
“Come out of her, my people,
so that you do not take part in her sins
and so that you do not share in her plagues,(D)
5 for her sins are heaped high as heaven,
and God has remembered her iniquities.(E)
6 Render to her as she herself has rendered,
and repay her double for her deeds;
mix a double dose for her in the cup she mixed.(F)
7 As she glorified herself and lived luxuriously,
so give her a like measure of torment and grief.
Since in her heart she says,
‘I rule as a queen;
I am no widow,
and I will never see grief,’(G)
8 therefore her plagues will come in a single day—
pestilence and mourning and famine—
and she will be burned with fire,
for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.”(H)
9 And the kings of the earth, who engaged in sexual immorality[e] and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning;(I) 10 they will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say,
“Alas, alas, the great city,
Babylon, the mighty city!
For in one hour your judgment has come.”(J)
11 And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo any more, 12 cargo of gold, silver, jewels and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all articles of ivory, all articles of costly wood, bronze, iron, and marble,(K) 13 cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, choice flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, slaves—and human lives.[f](L)
14 “The fruit for which your soul longed
has gone from you,
and all your delicacies and your splendor
are lost to you,
never to be found again!”
15 The merchants of these wares, who grew wealthy from her, will stand far off, in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud,(M)
16 “Alas, alas, the great city,
clothed in fine linen,
in purple and scarlet,
adorned with gold,
with jewels, and with pearls!(N)
17 For in one hour all this wealth has been laid waste!”
And all shipmasters and seafarers, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off(O) 18 and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning,
“What city was like the great city?”(P)
19 And they threw dust on their heads as they wept and mourned, crying out,
“Alas, alas, the great city,
where all who had ships at sea
grew rich by her wealth!
For in one hour she has been laid waste.”(Q)
20 Rejoice over her, O heaven, you saints and apostles and prophets! For God has condemned her condemnation of you.(R)
21 Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying,
“With such violence Babylon the great city
will be thrown down
and will be found no more;(S)
22 and the sound of harpists and entertainers and of flutists and trumpeters
will be heard in you no more,
and an artisan of any trade
will be found in you no more,
and the sound of the millstone
will be heard in you no more,(T)
23 and the light of a lamp
will shine in you no more,
and the voice of bridegroom and bride
will be heard in you no more,
for your merchants were the magnates of the earth,
and all nations were deceived by your sorcery.(U)
24 And in you[g] was found the blood of prophets and of saints
and of all who have been slaughtered on earth.”(V)
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.