Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

TETH

Justice

² The Lord your God will give you towns to live in. You may hear that a man or a woman who lives in one of your towns has done a bad thing. He has done a sin that is against the covenant of the Lord your God. ³ He may have started to worship false gods that I have commanded you not to worship. Perhaps he worships the sun, the moon or the stars. ⁴ If you hear news like that, you must check the report carefully. If it is true that a wicked thing like that has happened in Israel, ⁵ you must punish that person. Take the man or woman who has done that wicked thing to the gate of the town. Then you must throw stones at that person to kill them. ⁶ But two or three people must agree about what the person has done. You must never kill anyone because of the words of only one person. ⁷ The people who saw the wicked act must throw the first stones to kill the person. Then everyone else must also throw stones. In that way, you must remove evil acts from among you.

⁸ It may be difficult for the judges in your towns to decide what is true. This may happen when one person has attacked or killed another person. It may happen when people cannot agree about some land. It may be anything that people in your towns are arguing about. If you do not know who is right, you must take those people to the place that the Lord your God will choose. ⁹ You must go to the Levite priests and to the judge who has authority at that time. Ask them to decide what is right and true. ¹⁰ When they decide, you must do what they tell you to do. ¹¹ Accept their teaching. Agree with what they have decided is right. Obey their words completely. Do not try to do anything that is different. ¹² Someone might be too proud to obey the priest who has authority as the Lord's servant. He may not agree with what the judge says is right. You must punish any proud person like that with death. In that way you will remove evil things from Israel. ¹³ Then all the people will hear what has happened. They will be afraid. They will no longer be too proud to obey the judge.

Obey the government

13 Everyone must obey the government officers. It is God who gives the authority to rule. The people who rule have received their authority from God. ² So anyone who refuses to obey that authority is refusing to obey God. That person will receive the proper punishment.

³ People who do good things do not need to be afraid of the rulers. Only people who do bad things should be afraid of the rulers. Do you want to live and not be afraid of the rulers? Then you must do good things and they will respect you. ⁴ Rulers are God's servants. They help you to do good things. But if you do bad things, then you should be afraid of them. They really do have authority to punish people. On God's behalf they punish people who do bad things. ⁵ So you must obey the people who have authority to rule. You must obey them not only so that they do not punish you. You must obey them because it is right to obey them. And you yourselves know that this is right.

⁶ This is also the reason why you pay taxes to the government. You should pay them, because the officers are God's servants. They are doing the work that God has given to them. ⁷ So you must give to each person what you ought to give them. Pay taxes to the people who receive taxes. Do that for every kind of tax. Respect those people that you should respect. Praise people that you should praise.