Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

²¹ If you make a promise to give something to the Lord your God, do not be slow to pay it, because the Lord your God demands it from you. Do not be guilty of sin. ²² But if you do not make the promise, you will not be guilty. ²³ You must do whatever you say you will do, because you chose to make the promise to the Lord your God.

²⁴ If you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat as many grapes as you wish, but do not put any grapes into your basket. ²⁵ If you go into your neighbor’s grainfield, you may pick grain with your hands, but you must not cut down your neighbor’s grain with your sickle.

24 A man might marry a woman but later decide she doesn’t please him because he has found something bad about her. He writes out divorce papers for her, gives them to her, and sends her away from his house. ² After she leaves his house, she goes and marries another man, ³ but her second husband does not like her either. So he writes out divorce papers for her, gives them to her, and sends her away from his house. Or the second husband might die. ⁴ In either case, her first husband who divorced her must not marry her again, because she has become unclean. The Lord would hate this. Don’t bring this sin into the land the Lord your God is giving you as your own.

¹⁰ When you make a loan to your neighbors, don’t go into their homes to get something in place of it. ¹¹ Stay outside and let them go in and get what they promised you. ¹² If a poor person gives you a coat to show he will pay the loan back, don’t keep it overnight. ¹³ Give the coat back at sunset, because your neighbor needs that coat to sleep in, and he will be grateful to you. And the Lord your God will see that you have done a good thing.

¹⁴ Don’t cheat hired servants who are poor and needy, whether they are fellow Israelites or foreigners living in one of your towns. ¹⁵ Pay them each day before sunset, because they are poor and need the money. Otherwise, they may complain to the Lord about you, and you will be guilty of sin.

Love All People

2 My dear brothers and sisters, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, never think some people are more important than others. ² Suppose someone comes into your church meeting wearing nice clothes and a gold ring. At the same time a poor person comes in wearing old, dirty clothes. ³ You show special attention to the one wearing nice clothes and say, “Please, sit here in this good seat.” But you say to the poor person, “Stand over there,” or, “Sit on the floor by my feet.” ⁴ What are you doing? You are making some people more important than others, and with evil thoughts you are deciding that one person is better.

⁵ Listen, my dear brothers and sisters! God chose the poor in the world to be rich with faith and to receive the kingdom God promised to those who love him. ⁶ But you show no respect to the poor. The rich are always trying to control your lives. They are the ones who take you to court. ⁷ And they are the ones who speak against Jesus, who owns you.

⁸ This royal law is found in the Scriptures: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”^[a] If you obey this law, you are doing right. ⁹ But if you treat one person as being more important than another, you are sinning. You are guilty of breaking God’s law. ¹⁰ A person who follows all of God’s law but fails to obey even one command is guilty of breaking all the commands in that law. ¹¹ The same God who said, “You must not be guilty of adultery,”^[b] also said, “You must not murder anyone.”^[c] So if you do not take part in adultery but you murder someone, you are guilty of breaking all of God’s law. ¹² In everything you say and do, remember that you will be judged by the law that makes people free. ¹³ So you must show mercy to others, or God will not show mercy to you when he judges you. But the person who shows mercy can stand without fear at the judgment.