Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹⁷ Every good thing and every fine gift comes from heaven. It comes from the Father of all light. He does not change and he makes no shadow by turning.

¹⁸ He made us his children because he wanted us. He made us his children by giving us his true word. He made us his children so that we would be the first and best of all he made.

¹⁹ My dear brothers, do not forget this. Every man should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to be angry.

²⁰ When a man is angry, he does not do what God says is right.

²¹ So stop all your dirty living. Stop doing so many wrong things. Listen quietly to the word that has been put in your hearts. It is able to save you.

²² But obey God's word. Do not just listen to it. If you just listen to it, you fool yourselves.

²³ Anyone who just listens to the word, and does not obey it, is like a man who looks at his face in a looking glass.

²⁴ He looks at himself and goes away, and right away he forgets what he looked like.

²⁵ But there is a law that is all right. It sets people free from their old ways. Anyone who looks into that law and remembers it, is happy because he obeys the law. He does not just listen to the law and forget it, but he obeys what the law says.

²⁶ Some of you think that you are doing what God wants. But you are not careful what you say. If you are like that, you are fooling yourself. And you are not doing what God wants.

²⁷ This is what God the Father wants. It is clean and right. Go and help those who have no father and mother. Go and help widow women whose husbands are dead. These people have troubles. And keep yourself clean from the wrong things in the world.

7 Then some Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem came to Jesus.

² They saw some of the disciples eating food. They had not washed their hands before they ate. The Pharisees said that was wrong.

³ They and all the Jews keep the laws made by men. God did not give them those laws. They do not eat until they wash their hands very well.

⁴ When they come from the market, they do not eat until they have washed themselves. They also keep many other laws such as washing cups, pots, brass pans, and beds.

⁵ The Pharisees and the scribes asked Jesus, `Why do your disciples not keep the law our fathers made? Why do they eat with hands that are not clean?'

^6-7 esus said to them, `Isaiah spoke the truth about you people! You are not true to yourselves! He wrote about you this way: "These people respect me with their mouths. But their hearts are far from me. They do not mean it in their hearts when they worship me. Their teachings are only words of men."

⁸ `You do not keep the law of God, but you keep the laws made by people. Those laws are about washing pots and cups. You do many other things like that also.

¹⁴ Then Jesus called the people to him again. He said, `Listen to me, all of you, and understand what I say.

¹⁵ What goes into a person's mouth does not make him dirty. But what comes out of a person's mouth makes him dirty.

²¹ Here is what comes from the heart: wrong thoughts, all kinds of adultery, stealing, killing, wanting things that other people have, doing very wrong things, fooling people, breaking the law, jealousy, saying wrong things about people, being proud, being foolish.

²² All these wrong things come from a person's heart and make him dirty.'

²³ Then Jesus went away to the country of Tyre and Sidon. He went into a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. But he could not hide from the people.