Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹⁵ See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil,

¹⁶ in that I command thee this day to love Jehovah thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, that thou mayest live and multiply, and that Jehovah thy God may bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it.

¹⁷ But if thy heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and thou shalt bow down to other gods and serve them;

¹⁸ I denounce unto you this day that ye shall surely perish; ye shall not prolong your days upon the land whereunto thou passest over the Jordan to possess it.

¹⁹ I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you: life and death have I set before you, blessing and cursing: choose then life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed,

²⁰ in loving Jehovah thy God, in hearkening to his voice, and in cleaving to him—for this is thy life and the length of thy days—that thou mayest dwell in the land which Jehovah swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked, and standeth not in the way of sinners, and sitteth not in the seat of scorners;

² But his delight is in Jehovah's law, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

³ And he [is] as a tree planted by brooks of water, which giveth its fruit in its season, and whose leaf fadeth not; and all that he doeth prospereth.

⁴ The wicked are not so; but are as the chaff which the wind driveth away.

⁵ Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

⁶ For Jehovah knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish.

¹ Paul, prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timotheus the brother, to Philemon the beloved and our fellow-workman,

² and to the sister Apphia and to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the assembly which [is] in thine house.

³ Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and [the] Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴ I thank my God, always making mention of thee at my prayers,

⁵ hearing of thy love and the faith which thou hast towards the Lord Jesus, and towards all the saints,

⁶ in such sort that thy participation in the faith should become operative in the acknowledgment of every good thing which is in us towards Christ [Jesus].

⁷ For we have great thankfulness and encouragement through thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother.

⁸ Wherefore having much boldness in Christ to enjoin thee what is fitting,

⁹ for love's sake I rather exhort, being such a one as Paul the aged, and now also prisoner of Jesus Christ.

¹⁰ I exhort thee for *my* child, whom I have begotten in [my] bonds, Onesimus,

¹¹ once unserviceable to thee, but now serviceable to thee and to me:

¹² whom I have sent back to thee: [but do *thou* receive] him, that is, *my* bowels:

¹³ whom *I* was desirous of keeping with myself, that for thee he might minister to me in the bonds of the glad tidings;

¹⁴ but I have wished to do nothing without thy mind, that thy good might not be as of necessity but of willingness:

¹⁵ for perhaps for this reason he has been separated [from thee] for a time, that thou mightest possess him fully for ever;

¹⁶ not any longer as a bondman, but above a bondman, a beloved brother, specially to me, and how much rather to thee, both in [the] flesh and in [the] Lord?

¹⁷ If therefore thou holdest me to be a partner [with thee], receive him as me;

¹⁸ but if he have wronged thee anything or owe anything [to thee], put this to my account.

¹⁹ *I* Paul have written [it] with mine own hand; *I* will repay [it]: that I say not to thee that thou owest even thine own self also to me.

²⁰ Yea, brother, *I* would have profit of *thee* in [the] Lord: refresh my bowels in Christ.

²¹ Being confident of thine obedience, I have written to thee, knowing that thou wilt do even more than I say.

²⁵ And great crowds went with him; and, turning round, he said to them,

²⁶ If any man come to me, and shall not hate his own father and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yea, and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple;

²⁷ and whoever does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

²⁸ For which of you, desirous of building a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, if he have what [is needed] to complete it;

²⁹ in order that, having laid the foundation of it, and not being able to finish it, all who see it do not begin to mock at him,

³⁰ saying, This man began to build and was not able to finish?

³¹ Or what king, going on his way to engage in war with another king, does not, sitting down first, take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him coming against him with twenty thousand?

³² and if not, while he is yet far off, having sent an embassy, he asks for terms of peace.

³³ Thus then every one of you who forsakes not all that is his own cannot be my disciple.