Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁴ The Lord God has given me his words of wisdom so that I may know what I should say to all these weary ones. Morning by morning he wakens me and opens my understanding to his will. ⁵ The Lord God has spoken to me, and I have listened; I do not rebel nor turn away. ⁶ I give my back to the whip, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I do not hide from shame—they spit in my face.

⁷ Because the Lord God helps me, I will not be dismayed; therefore, I have set my face like flint to do his will, and I know that I will triumph. ⁸ He who gives me justice is near. Who will dare to fight against me now? Where are my enemies? Let them appear! ⁹ See, the Lord God is for me! Who shall declare me guilty? All my enemies shall be destroyed like old clothes eaten up by moths!

116 I love the Lord because he hears my prayers and answers them. ² Because he bends down and listens, I will pray as long as I breathe!

³ Death stared me in the face—I was frightened and sad. ⁴ Then I cried, “Lord, save me!” ⁵ How kind he is! How good he is! So merciful, this God of ours! ⁶ The Lord protects the simple and the childlike; I was facing death, and then he saved me. ⁷ Now I can relax. For the Lord has done this wonderful miracle for me. ⁸ He has saved me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. ⁹ I shall live! Yes, in his presence—here on earth!

3 ^1-2 Dear brothers, don’t be too eager to tell others their faults,^[a] for we all make many mistakes; and when we teachers of religion, who should know better, do wrong, our punishment will be greater than it would be for others.

If anyone can control his tongue, it proves that he has perfect control over himself in every other way. ³ We can make a large horse turn around and go wherever we want by means of a small bit in his mouth. ⁴ And a tiny rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot wants it to go, even though the winds are strong.

⁵ So also the tongue is a small thing, but what enormous damage it can do. A great forest can be set on fire by one tiny spark. ⁶ And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is full of wickedness, and poisons every part of the body. And the tongue is set on fire by hell itself and can turn our whole lives into a blazing flame of destruction and disaster.

⁷ Men have trained, or can train, every kind of animal or bird that lives and every kind of reptile and fish, ⁸ but no human being can tame the tongue. It is always ready to pour out its deadly poison. ⁹ Sometimes it praises our heavenly Father, and sometimes it breaks out into curses against men who are made like God. ¹⁰ And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Dear brothers, surely this is not right! ¹¹ Does a spring of water bubble out first with fresh water and then with bitter water? ¹² Can you pick olives from a fig tree, or figs from a grape vine? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty pool.

²⁷ Jesus and his disciples now left Galilee and went out to the villages of Caesarea Philippi. As they were walking along he asked them, “Who do the people think I am? What are they saying about me?”

²⁸ “Some of them think you are John the Baptist,” the disciples replied, “and others say you are Elijah or some other ancient prophet come back to life again.”

²⁹ Then he asked, “Who do you think I am?” Peter replied, “You are the Messiah.” ³⁰ But Jesus warned them not to tell anyone!

³¹ Then he began to tell them about the terrible things he would suffer,^[a] and that he would be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the other Jewish leaders—and be killed, and that he would rise again three days afterwards. ³² He talked about it quite frankly with them, so Peter took him aside and chided him.^[b] “You shouldn’t say things like that,” he told Jesus.

³³ Jesus turned and looked at his disciples and then said to Peter very sternly, “Satan, get behind me! You are looking at this only from a human point of view and not from God’s.”

³⁴ Then he called his disciples and the crowds to come over and listen. “If any of you wants to be my follower,” he told them, “you must put aside your own pleasures and shoulder your cross, and follow me closely. ³⁵ If you insist on saving your life, you will lose it. Only those who throw away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it means to really live.

³⁶ “And how does a man benefit if he gains the whole world and loses his soul in the process? ³⁷ For is anything worth more than his soul? ³⁸ And anyone who is ashamed of me and my message in these days of unbelief and sin, I, the Messiah,^[c] will be ashamed of him when I return in the glory of my Father, with the holy angels.”