Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Israel Belongs to God

19 The Lord said to Moses, ² “Tell all the Israelites: I am the Lord your God. I am holy, so you must be holy.

¹⁵ “You must be fair in judgment. You must not show special favor to the poor. And you must not show special favor to important people. You must be fair when you judge your neighbor. ¹⁶ You must not go around spreading false stories against other people. Don’t do anything that would put your neighbor’s life in danger. I am the Lord.

¹⁷ “Don’t secretly hate any of your neighbors. But tell them openly what they have done wrong so that you will not be just as guilty of sin as they are. ¹⁸ Forget about the wrong things people do to you. Don’t try to get even. Love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

Book 1

(Psalms 1-41)

Paul’s Work in Thessalonica

2 Brothers and sisters, you know that our visit to you was not a failure. ² Before we came to you, people in Philippi abused us with insults and made us suffer. You know all about that. And then, when we came to you, many people there caused trouble for us. But our God gave us the courage we needed to tell you his Good News. ³ When we encourage people to believe the Good News, it’s not out of wrong motives. We are not trying to trick or fool anyone. ⁴ No, we did it because God is the one who gave us this work. And this was only after he tested us and saw that we could be trusted to do it. So when we speak, we are only trying to please God, not anyone else. He is the one who can see what is in our hearts.

⁵ You know that we never tried to influence you by saying nice things about you. We were not trying to get your money. We had no greed to hide from you. God knows that this is true. ⁶ We were not looking for praise from people—not from you or anyone else.

⁷ When we were with you, as apostles of Christ we could have used our authority to make you help us. But we were very gentle^[a] with you. We were like a mother caring for her little children. ⁸ We loved you very much, so we were happy to share God’s Good News with you. But not only that—we were also happy to share even our own lives with you.

Which Command Is the Most Important?^(A)

³⁴ The Pharisees learned that Jesus had made the Sadducees look so foolish that they stopped trying to argue with him. So the Pharisees had a meeting. ³⁵ Then one of them, an expert in the Law of Moses, asked Jesus a question to test him. ³⁶ He said, “Teacher, which command in the law is the most important?”

³⁷ Jesus answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’^{[a] 38} This is the first and most important command. ³⁹ And the second command is like the first: ‘Love your neighbor^[b] the same as you love yourself.’^{[c] 40} All of the law and the writings of the prophets take their meaning from these two commands.”

Is the Messiah David’s Son or David’s Lord?^(B)

⁴¹ So while the Pharisees were together, Jesus asked them a question. ⁴² He said, “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose son is he?”

The Pharisees answered, “The Messiah is the Son of David.”

⁴³ Jesus said to them, “Then why did David call him ‘Lord’? David was speaking by the power of the Spirit. He said,

⁴⁵ David calls the Messiah ‘Lord.’ So how can he be David’s son?”

⁴⁶ None of the Pharisees could answer Jesus’ question. And after that day, no one was brave enough to ask him any more questions.