Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

6 “These, now, are the Commandments, Ordinances, and Laws, which the LORD your God Commanded to teach, so that you might do them in the land to which you go to possess,

² “so that you might fear the LORD your God and keep all His Ordinances and his Commandments which I command you—you and your son and your son’s son, all the days of your life—so that your days may be prolonged.

³ “Hear, therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do it, so that it may go well with you, and that you may increase mightily in the land that flows with milk and honey, as the LORD God of your fathers has promised you.

⁴ “Hear, O Israel, The LORD our God is LORD only,

⁵ “and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

⁶ “And these words which I command you this day shall be in your heart.

⁷ “And you shall repeat them continually to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and as you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.

⁸ “And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand. And they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.

⁹ “Also, you shall write them upon the posts of your house and upon your gates.

ALEPH

¹ Blessed are those who are upright in their way and walk in the Law of the LORD.

² Blessed are those who keep His Testimonies and seek Him with their whole heart.

³ Surely, they work no iniquity, but walk in His ways.

⁴ You have commanded to keep Your Precepts diligently.

⁵ Oh that my ways were directed to keep Your Statutes!

⁶ Then I would not be confounded, with respect to all Your Commandments.

⁷ I will praise You with an upright heart, when I shall learn the Judgments of Your righteousness.

⁸ I will keep Your Statutes. Do not forsake me utterly.

¹¹ But Christ - being a High Priest of good things to come - came by a greater and more perfect Tabernacle (not made with hands - that is, not of this creation -

¹² nor by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood), entering in once to the Holy Place and obtaining eternal redemption.

¹³ For if the sprinkling of the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who are unclean (as touching the purifying of the flesh),

¹⁴ how much more shall the blood of Christ - Who, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without fault to God - purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God?

²⁸ Then came one of the scribes who had heard them disputing together. And perceiving that he had answered them well, he asked him, “Which is the first Commandment of all?

²⁹ Jesus answered him, “The first of all the Commandments is, ‘Hear, Israel, The Lord our God is the only Lord.

³⁰ “‘You shall therefore love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first Commandment.

³¹ “And the second is similar; that is, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other Commandment greater than these.”

³² Then that scribe said to Him, “Well, Master, you have said the truth; that there is one God, and that there is none but He,

³³ “And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbor as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

³⁴ Then when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, He said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” And no one dared to ask Him any question after that.