Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁵ Then the prophet Yirmeyahu said to the prophet Hananyah in front of the cohanim and all the people standing in Adonai’s house — ⁶ the prophet Yirmeyahu said, “Amen! May Adonai do it! May Adonai fulfill the words you have prophesied and bring back from Bavel to this place the articles from Adonai’s house and all the people who were carried away captive! ⁷ Nevertheless, listen now to this word that I am speaking for you to hear and for all the people to hear. ⁸ The prophets who were here before me and before you prophesied in times past against many countries and against great kingdoms about war, disaster and plagues. ⁹ As for a prophet who prophesies peace — when the word of that prophet is fulfilled, it will be evident concerning that prophet that Adonai indeed did send him.”

¹² Therefore, do not let sin rule in your mortal bodies, so that it makes you obey its desires; ¹³ and do not offer any part of yourselves to sin as an instrument for wickedness. On the contrary, offer yourselves to God as people alive from the dead, and your various parts to God as instruments for righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin will not have authority over you; because you are not under legalism but under grace.

¹⁵ Therefore, what conclusion should we reach? “Let’s go on sinning, because we’re not under legalism but under grace”? Heaven forbid! ¹⁶ Don’t you know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, then, of the one whom you are obeying, you are slaves — whether of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to being made righteous? ¹⁷ By God’s grace, you, who were once slaves to sin, obeyed from your heart the pattern of teaching to which you were exposed; ¹⁸ and after you had been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. ¹⁹ (I am using popular language because your human nature is so weak.) For just as you used to offer your various parts as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led to more lawlessness; so now offer your various parts as slaves to righteousness, which leads to being made holy, set apart for God. ²⁰ For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in relationship to righteousness; ²¹ but what benefit did you derive from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end result of those things was death. ²² However, now, freed from sin and enslaved to God, you do get the benefit — it consists in being made holy, set apart for God, and its end result is eternal life. ²³ For what one earns from sin is death; but eternal life is what one receives as a free gift from God, in union with the Messiah Yeshua, our Lord.

⁴⁰ “Whoever receives you is receiving me, and whoever receives me is receiving the One who sent me. ⁴¹ Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive the reward a prophet gets, and anyone who receives a tzaddik because he is a tzaddik will receive the reward a tzaddik gets. ⁴² Indeed, if someone gives just a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my talmid — yes! — I tell you, he will certainly not lose his reward!”