Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Evil Plans Against Jeremiah

¹⁸ The Lord showed me that the men of Anathoth^[a] were making plans against me. He showed me what they were doing, so I knew they were against me. ¹⁹ Before he showed me this, I was like a gentle lamb waiting to be butchered. I did not understand that they were against me. They were saying this about me: “Let us destroy the tree and its fruit! Let us kill him! Then people will forget him.” ²⁰ So I prayed, “Lord All-Powerful, you are a fair judge. You know how to test people’s hearts and minds. I will tell you my arguments, and I will let you give them the punishment they deserve.”

To the director: With instruments. A maskil of David written when the Ziphites went to Saul and told him, “We think David is hiding among our people.”

True Wisdom

¹³ Are there any among you who are really wise and understanding? Then you should show your wisdom by living right. You should do what is good with humility. A wise person does not boast. ¹⁴ If you are selfish and have bitter jealousy in your hearts, you have no reason to boast. Your boasting is a lie that hides the truth. ¹⁵ That kind of “wisdom” does not come from God. That “wisdom” comes from the world. It is not spiritual. It is from the devil. ¹⁶ Where there is jealousy and selfishness, there will be confusion and every kind of evil. ¹⁷ But the wisdom that comes from God is like this: First, it is pure. It is also peaceful, gentle, and easy to please. This wisdom is always ready to help people who have trouble and to do good for others. This wisdom is always fair and honest. ¹⁸ People who work for peace in a peaceful way get the blessings that come from right living.

Give Yourselves to God

4 Do you know where your fights and arguments come from? They come from the selfish desires that make war inside you. ² You want things, but you don’t get them. So you kill and are jealous of others. But you still cannot get what you want. So you argue and fight. You don’t get what you want because you don’t ask God. ³ Or when you ask, you don’t receive anything, because the reason you ask is wrong. You only want to use it for your own pleasure.

⁷ So give yourselves to God. Stand against the devil, and he will run away from you. ⁸ Come near to God and he will come near to you. You are sinners, so clean sin out of your lives.^[a] You are trying to follow God and the world at the same time. Make your thinking pure.

Jesus Talks About His Death^(A)

³⁰ Then Jesus and his followers left there and went through Galilee. Jesus did not want the people to know where they were. ³¹ He wanted to teach his followers alone. He said to them, “The Son of Man will be handed over to the control of other men, who will kill him. After three days, he will rise from death.” ³² But the followers did not understand what he meant, and they were afraid to ask him.

Who Is the Greatest?^(B)

³³ Jesus and his followers went to Capernaum. They went into a house, and Jesus said to them, “I heard you arguing on the way here today. What were you arguing about?” ³⁴ But the followers did not answer, because their argument on the road was about which one of them was the greatest.

³⁵ Jesus sat down and called the twelve apostles to him. He said, “Whoever wants to be the most important must make others more important than themselves. They must serve everyone else.”

³⁶ Then Jesus took a small child and stood the child in front of the followers. He held the child in his arms and said, ³⁷ “Whoever accepts children like these in my name is accepting me. And anyone who accepts me is also accepting the one who sent me.”