Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁶⁵ You have done good to Your servant, O Lord, because of Your Word. ⁶⁶ Teach me what I should know to be right and fair for I believe in Your Law. ⁶⁷ Before I suffered I went the wrong way, but now I obey Your Word. ⁶⁸ You are good and You do good. Teach me Your Law. ⁶⁹ The proud have put together a lie against me. I will keep Your Law with all my heart. ⁷⁰ Their heart is covered with fat, but I find joy in Your Law. ⁷¹ It is good for me that I was troubled, so that I might learn Your Law. ⁷² The Law of Your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.

² “You may find among you, within any of your towns the Lord your God gives you, a man or a woman who does what is sinful in the eyes of the Lord your God by sinning against the Lord’s agreement. ³ If he has served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun, or the moon or the stars, which I have told him not to worship, ⁴ and if someone told you about this, then you should do your best to find out if it is true. If it is true that this hated thing has been done in Israel, ⁵ then bring that man or woman who has done this sinful act to your gates, and kill the man or woman with stones. ⁶ If two or three people tell what they know against this person, he who is to die must be put to death. But he should not be put to death if only one person speaks against him. ⁷ Those who speak against him should be first to put him to death. And then all the people should join them. You must get rid of all sin from among you.

⁸ “There may be a problem too hard for you to decide, between two kinds of killing, between two kinds of questions about the law, between two kinds of hurting, problems argued about in your courts. Then get up and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses. ⁹ Go to the Levite religious leader or the judge who is at work at that time. Ask them, and they will tell you what they decide. ¹⁰ Then do what should be done by what they tell you they have decided at that place which the Lord chooses. Be careful to do all they tell you. ¹¹ Do what they teach you about the Law and about what they decide. Do not turn aside from what they tell you to do, to the right or to the left. ¹² The man must die who does foolish things and will not listen to the judge or the religious leader who serves the Lord your God. You must get rid of sin from Israel. ¹³ Then all the people will hear and be afraid. They will not act in a foolish way again.

13 Every person must obey the leaders of the land. There is no power given but from God, and all leaders are allowed by God. ² The person who does not obey the leaders of the land is working against what God has done. Anyone who does that will be punished.

³ Those who do right do not have to be afraid of the leaders. Those who do wrong are afraid of them. Do you want to be free from fear of them? Then do what is right. You will be respected instead. ⁴ Leaders are God’s servants to help you. If you do wrong, you should be afraid. They have the power to punish you. They work for God. They do what God wants done to those who do wrong.

⁵ You must obey the leaders of the land, not only to keep from God’s anger, but so your own heart will have peace. ⁶ It is right for you to pay taxes because the leaders of the land are servants for God who care for these things. ⁷ Pay taxes to whom taxes are to be paid. Be afraid of those you should fear. Respect those you should respect.