Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

³⁸ Elisha came again to Gilgal. There was a famine in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him; and he said to his servant, “Get the large pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.”

³⁹ One went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine, and gathered a lap full of wild gourds from it, and came and cut them up into the pot of stew; for they didn’t recognize them. ⁴⁰ So they poured out for the men to eat. As they were eating some of the stew, they cried out and said, “Man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it.

⁴¹ But he said, “Then bring meal.” He threw it into the pot; and he said, “Serve it to the people, that they may eat.” And there was nothing harmful in the pot.

³¹ In the meanwhile, the disciples urged him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.”

³² But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

³³ The disciples therefore said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?”

³⁴ Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work. ³⁵ Don’t you say, ‘There are yet four months until the harvest’? Behold, I tell you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, that they are white for harvest already. ³⁶ He who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit to eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. ³⁷ For in this the saying is true, ‘One sows, and another reaps.’ ³⁸ I sent you to reap that for which you haven’t labored. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”