Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁷ Son of man, I have chosen you to be a guard for Israel's people. You must listen to the messages that I give you. Then you must use what I say to warn the Israelites. ⁸ I might say to a wicked person, “You will certainly die because of your sins.” Then you must warn that wicked person to stop doing wicked things. If you do not warn him, he will die because of his sins. But I will say that you are guilty of his death. ⁹ If you do warn him and he refuses to change, he will die because of his sins. But you will have saved your own life.

¹⁰ Son of man, give Israel's people this message: “You are saying, ‘The punishment for our sins is too much for us. We are dying because of all the bad things that we have done. What should we do so that we can continue to live?’ ”

¹¹ Tell them, “It does not make me happy to punish wicked people with death. I, the Almighty Lord, promise you this, as surely as I live. I want wicked people to stop doing wrong things so that they may continue to live. So stop doing evil things! Israel's people, you do not have to die. Turn back to me!”

HE

Love other people

⁸ Always pay your debts to people. The only debt that you should have is to love each other. Anyone who loves other people has obeyed God's Law completely.

⁹ The rules in God's Law say this: ‘Do not have sex with anyone who is not your own wife or your own husband. Do not kill anyone. Do not rob anyone. Do not want things that belong to other people.’ All these rules, and all the other rules in God's Law, are all included in one rule. That one rule is: ‘Love other people as much as you love yourself.’ ¹⁰ If you love other people, you will never do anything bad to them. So anyone who loves other people has obeyed God's Law completely.

¹¹ Live in that way, because you know what is happening in this time now. It is time that you should stop sleeping. It is now time to wake up. The time when God will save us completely is near. That time is nearer now than when we first believed in him. ¹² The night has nearly finished and the day is almost here. So we must stop doing the bad things that belong to the dark. Instead, we must take weapons like soldiers who are ready to fight in the light.^[a]

¹³ We should live in a good way, because we live in the light of day. We should not go to wild parties. We must not be drunks. We must not have sex with anyone who is not our own wife or husband. We must not do wrong things with our bodies. We must not quarrel. We must not be jealous of other people. ¹⁴ Instead, you must live with the Lord Jesus Christ as your guide. Do not even think about the bad things that you may want to do to make yourself happy.

A friend does wrong things against you

¹⁵ Jesus said, ‘If your Christian friend has done something wrong against you, you must go and speak to him. When you are alone with him, tell him what he has done that is wrong. He may agree with what you say. If he does, then you can call him your friend again.

¹⁶ But maybe he does not want to listen to you. Then take one or two other people with you to speak to him. They will then know what wrong things your friend has done. Remember what the Bible says: “There must be two or three people to say certainly that another person has done something wrong. Two or three people must agree what has happened.” ¹⁷ If your friend still will not agree that he has done something wrong, then go and tell the church leaders.^[a] If he does not agree with the leaders, stop being his friend. He is like somebody who refuses to obey God.^[b]

¹⁸ I tell you this: You will tell people here on earth what is right for them to do. And you will tell them what is not right for them to do. God in heaven will give you this authority. He will agree with what you say.

¹⁹ Two people may agree together to ask God for something. If they agree like that, then my Father in heaven will give them what they ask for.^{[c] 20} Two or more people may meet together because they believe in me. If they do that, I will be there with them.’