Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

God’s Servant Depends on God

⁴ The Lord God gave me the ability to teach, so now I teach these sad people. Every morning he wakes me and teaches me like a student. ⁵ The Lord God helps me learn, and I have not turned against him. I will not stop following him. ⁶ I will let those people beat me and pull the hair from my beard. I will not hide my face when they say bad things to me and spit at me. ⁷ The Lord God will help me, so the bad things they say will not hurt me. I will be strong. I know I will not be disappointed.

⁸ God is with me, and he is the one who shows that I am innocent. So no one can say I am guilty. If anyone wants to try to prove me wrong, they should come here, and we will have a trial. ⁹ But look, the Lord God helps me, so no one can prove me guilty. As for them, they will all be like worthless old clothes, eaten by moths.

Controlling the Things We Say

3 My brothers and sisters, not many of you should be teachers. I say this because, as you know, we who teach will be judged more strictly than others.

² We all make many mistakes. A person who never said anything wrong would be perfect. Someone like that would be able to control their whole body too. ³ We put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us. With these bits we can control their whole body. ⁴ It is the same with ships. A ship is very big, and it is pushed by strong winds. But a very small rudder controls that big ship. And the one who controls the rudder decides where the ship will go. It goes where he wants it to go. ⁵ It is the same with our tongue. It is a small part of the body, but it can boast about doing great things.

A big forest fire can be started with only a little flame. ⁶ The tongue is like a fire. It is a world of evil among the parts of our body. It spreads its evil through our whole body and starts a fire that influences all of life. It gets this fire from hell.

⁷ Humans have control over every kind of wild animal, bird, reptile, and fish, and they have controlled all these things. ⁸ But no one can control the tongue. It is wild and evil, full of deadly poison. ⁹ We use our tongues to praise our Lord and Father, but then we curse people who were created in God’s likeness. ¹⁰ These praises and curses come from the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, this should not happen. ¹¹ Do good water and bad water flow from the same spring? Of course not. ¹² My brothers and sisters, can a fig tree make olives? Or can a grapevine make figs? No, and a well full of salty water cannot give good water.

Peter Says Jesus Is the Messiah^(A)

²⁷ Jesus and his followers went to the towns in the area of Caesarea Philippi. While they were traveling, Jesus asked the followers, “Who do people say I am?”

²⁸ They answered, “Some people say you are John the Baptizer. Others say you are Elijah. And others say you are one of the prophets.”

²⁹ Then Jesus asked, “Who do you say I am?”

Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.”

³⁰ Jesus told the followers, “Don’t tell anyone who I am.”

Jesus Says He Must Die^(B)

³¹ Then Jesus began to teach his followers that the Son of Man must suffer many things. He taught that the Son of Man would not be accepted by the older Jewish leaders, the leading priests, and the teachers of the law. He said that the Son of Man must be killed and then rise from death after three days. ³² Jesus told them everything that would happen. He did not keep anything secret.

Peter took Jesus away from the other followers to talk to him alone. Peter criticized him for saying these things. ³³ But Jesus turned and looked at his followers. Then he criticized Peter. He said to Peter, “Get away from me, Satan^[a]! You don’t care about the same things God does. You care only about things that people think are important.”

³⁴ Then Jesus called the crowd and his followers to him. He said, “Any of you who want to be my follower must stop thinking about yourself and what you want. You must be willing to carry the cross that is given to you for following me. ³⁵ Any of you who try to save the life you have will lose it. But you who give up your life for me and for the Good News will save it. ³⁶ It is worth nothing for you to have the whole world if you yourself are lost. ³⁷ You could never pay enough to buy back your life. ³⁸ People today are so sinful. They have not been faithful to God. As you live among them, don’t be ashamed of me and my teaching. If that happens, I^[b] will be ashamed of you when I come with the glory of my Father and the holy angels.”