Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Paul praises the preaching of the gospel above the preaching of the law.

3 We begin to praise ourselves again. Do we, like some others, need letters of recommendation to you? or letters of recommendation from you? ² You are our letter written in our hearts, which is understood and read by all people, ³ in that it is known that you are the epistle of Christ through our work – and written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, and not in tablets of stone, but in fleshly tablets of the heart.

⁴ Such confidence we have through Christ in God. ⁵ It is not that we are competent in and of ourselves, so as to think a good thought, as it were, by ourselves. But our ability comes from God, ⁶ who has made us able to minister the new testament – not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

¹³ And he went again to the sea side. And all the people gathered to him, and he taught them. ¹⁴ And as Jesus was passing by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the receipt of custom and said to him, Follow me. And he arose and followed him.

¹⁵ And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at food in Levi’s house, that many publicans and sinners sat at food also with Jesus and his disciples. For there were many who followed him. ¹⁶ And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans and sinners, they said to his disciples, How is it that he eats and drinks with publicans and sinners? ¹⁷ When Jesus heard that, he said to them, The whole have no need of the physician, but the sick do. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

¹⁸ And the disciples of John and the Pharisees used to fast, and so they came and said to him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? ¹⁹ And Jesus said to them, Can the children of a wedding fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. ²⁰ But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and then they will fast, in those days. ²¹ Also, no one sows a piece of new cloth onto an old garment, because then the new piece pulls away from the old, and the tear is worse. ²² Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins, for if he does, the new wine bursts the skins, and the wine runs out and the vessels are marred. But new wine must be poured into new vessels.