Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A prayer when you are in trouble^[a]

The priests do not respect God

⁶ The Lord Almighty says this to the priests:

‘A son respects his father. A servant respects his master. If I am really your father and your master, why do you not respect me? You are my priests, but you insult my name.^[a]

But then you ask, “What have we done to insult your name?”

⁷ You insult my name when you offer unclean sacrifices to me on my altar.

But you ask, “How have we offered unclean sacrifices to you?”

You have shown that you do not respect the Lord's altar as important.^{[b] 8} You offer blind animals as a sacrifice to me. You know that is wrong. You offer to me animals that cannot walk or animals that are ill. That is also a wrong thing to do. You would not give gifts like that to your city's ruler. If you did, he would surely not accept them. He would not be happy with your gifts.’

That is what the Lord Almighty says.

⁹ ‘Now you ask me to be kind to you. You want me to forgive you. But when you offer unclean animals as gifts to me, I will not be happy with your gifts.’

That is what the Lord Almighty says.

¹⁰ ‘It would be better if one of you shut the temple doors! Then you would not be able to offer useless sacrifices on my altar. I am not happy with you. I will not accept any more gifts from you.’

That is what the Lord Almighty says.

¹¹ ‘People in every nation of the whole world will respect my name. People everywhere will offer incense and pure sacrifices to worship me. They will all know that I am great.’

That is what the Lord Almighty says.

¹² ‘But you priests insult my name. You say that the Lord's altar is not special. You think that the food which you offer to me has no value. ¹³ You also say, “It is too much trouble to serve the Lord.” You think that you are too important to serve me.’

That is what the Lord Almighty says.

‘You offer to me animals that cannot walk or that are ill. You have even robbed other people to get some of these animals. Do you think that I will accept these unclean animals from you? Will I be happy with them?’

That is what the Lord says.

¹⁴ ‘You may promise to offer to me a valuable male animal from among your sheep. But then you change your mind. Instead, you offer to me an animal that has no value. I will surely punish you when you cheat me like that. Remember that I am a great king. People of all nations in the world respect my name with fear.’

That is what the Lord Almighty says.

The priests teach wrong things

2 The Lord Almighty says this to the priests:

² ‘Listen carefully to what I say to you. You must respect my name properly. If not, I will punish you. I will no longer bless you but I will curse you. I am already doing that because you do not respect my name as you should.

³ I will punish your descendants. When you offer an animal as a sacrifice at your festivals, I will cover your faces with its dirty bits. Then they will throw you away with all the other dirty bits. Those are the bits that I cannot accept as clean.’^[c]

⁴ The Lord Almighty says, ‘When I punish you like that, you will know that I have warned you. Then the covenant that I made with Levi and his descendants, the priests, can continue.^{[d] 5} I promised to give them a good life with many blessings. Levi received what I promised to him. He served me and he respected me, as a priest should do. ⁶ He taught my true message. He did not teach people anything that was bad. He lived in a good and honest way as he served me. He helped many people to stop doing wrong things.

⁷ Priests should help people to know the truth about God. People should ask the priests to teach them, because the Lord Almighty has chosen priests to speak his message. ⁸ But you priests do not serve me in the right way. What you teach causes many people to do wrong things. In that way, you have spoiled the covenant that I made with Levi.’

That is what the Lord Almighty says.

⁹ ‘So I have caused all the people to insult you. They no longer respect you, because you do not obey my rules. When you teach my people, you are kind to some of them but you cheat others.’^[e]

Jesus speaks against the teachers of God's Law and the Pharisees

¹³ Jesus spoke to the teachers of God's Law and the Pharisees. ‘It will be very bad for you,’ he said. ‘You are hypocrites! You have stopped people who wanted to go into the kingdom of heaven. It is like you have shut the door so that they cannot go in. Then you yourselves do not even go in.

¹⁴ [It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's Law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You take things away from women after their husbands have died. You pray for a long time so that other people will praise you. God will punish you much more than other people.]^[a]

¹⁵ It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's Law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You travel far across land and sea. You do this to make one person believe what you believe. Then, when he does believe your ideas, he becomes worse than you are. He shows that he belongs to hell even more than you do.

¹⁶ It will be very bad for you, teachers. You cannot see what is true, but you show people which way to go.^[b] You say to people, “You may make a promise by the name of the temple. Then it is not a serious promise. You do not have to do it. But you may also make a promise by the gold things in the temple. Then it is a serious promise, and you must do it.” ¹⁷ This shows that you are fools. You do not understand what is true. Think about which of these is more important. Is it the gold things in the temple? Or is it the temple itself? It is the temple that makes the gold things special. ¹⁸ You also say to people, “You may make a promise by the altar in the temple. Then it is not a serious promise. You do not have to do it. But you may also make a promise by the gifts on that altar. Then it is a serious promise and you must do it.” ¹⁹ You are people who cannot understand what is true. Think about which of these things is more important. Is it the gifts on the altar? Or is it the altar itself? It is the altar that makes the gifts special. ²⁰ Remember this: Somebody may make a promise by the name of the altar. Then he is making a promise by God's name. The altar as well as all the gifts on it are special to God. ²¹ Also, somebody may make a promise by the name of the temple. Then he is making a promise in the name of God, who lives there. ²² Or somebody may make a promise by heaven. Then he is making a promise by the place where God sits and rules. So he is making a promise by the name of God himself.^[c]

²³ It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's Law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! When you grow spices to cook with food, you give a tenth part of these small things to God. You are right to obey this rule. But you do not obey the more important parts of God's Law. You do not help people in a good way. You are not kind to them. You do not always do what God says is right. You should have done these important things as well as the other small things. ²⁴ You are like blind people, but you show other people which way to go. You carefully take a small fly out of your water so that you do not drink it. But then you drink the large animal that is swimming in it!^[d]

²⁵ It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's Law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You always clean the outside of your cups and plates very carefully. You only clean the outside part that people can see. But on the inside, everything is still dirty. Inside you, your minds are full of bad thoughts. You want to have more things for yourself. You hurt other people to get what you want. ²⁶ Pharisees, you do not see what is true! You must first clean the inside of the cup. Then the outside that people can see will also be clean.

²⁷ It will be very bad for you, teachers of God's law and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You are like a grave that has nice white paint on the outside and it looks beautiful. But on the inside it is full of bones and disgusting things. ²⁸ You are the same as that. Other people look at you. They think that you are good and you obey God. But on the inside you are hypocrites. Your minds are full of many bad thoughts.