Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Come to the Lord!

The Jews have not believed in Christ

9 What I am telling you is true. I speak as someone who belongs to Christ. I am not telling lies. God's Holy Spirit rules my thoughts and I am sure that I am right. ² I tell you this: Deep inside myself, I am always very sad and upset because of Israel's people. ³ I belong to the same family as they do. They are my own people. I really want them to believe in Christ too. If it would help them, I would even ask God to curse me. I would ask him to make me separate from Christ.

⁴ They are Israelite people. God chose them to belong to him as his own children. He showed them that he is very great. He made many agreements with them and he gave his Law to them. He showed them how they should worship him. He promised many good things to them. ⁵ It was their ancestors that God chose to make great many years ago.^[a] And Christ himself, as a man, was born to an Israelite family. Christ is God, who rules over all things. We should praise him for ever! This is true! Amen.

Jesus gives food to 5,000 men and their families

¹³ Jesus heard about what had happened to John. After that, he went away from that place. He sailed in a boat to a quiet place where he could be alone. But the crowd heard where Jesus had gone. So they left their towns and they went on land to the place where he was going. ¹⁴ Jesus got out of the boat. He saw a large crowd there on the shore. He felt sorry for them. There were sick people among them and he made them well again.

¹⁵ When it was almost evening, Jesus' disciples came to speak to him. They said to him, ‘We are in a place where there are no houses. It will soon be dark. Send the crowd away now, so that they can go to the villages near here. Then they can buy some food for themselves to eat.’

¹⁶ Jesus said to them, ‘The people do not need to go away. You should give them some food to eat.’

¹⁷ But the disciples said, ‘We only have five loaves of bread and two fish.’

¹⁸ ‘Bring the bread and fish here to me,’ Jesus said. ¹⁹ Then he said to the large crowd, ‘Sit down on the grass.’ He took the five loaves of bread and the two fish. He looked up to heaven and he thanked God for the bread and the fish. Then he broke the bread into pieces. He gave the pieces of bread to his disciples, and they gave them to the crowd. ²⁰ Then everybody ate. They all had enough food and they were not hungry any more. Then the disciples picked up all the bits of food that people had not eaten. They filled 12 baskets with little bits of bread and fish. ²¹ About 5,000 men ate the bread and fish. Women and children also ate it with them.^[a]