Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

43 O God, defend me from the charges of these merciless, deceitful men. ² For you are God, my only place of refuge. Why have you tossed me aside? Why must I mourn at the oppression of my enemies?

³ Oh, send out your light and your truth—let them lead me. Let them lead me to your Temple on your holy mountain, Zion. ⁴ There I will go to the altar of God, my exceeding joy, and praise him with my harp. O God—my God! ⁵ O my soul, why be so gloomy and discouraged? Trust in God! I shall again praise him for his wondrous help; he will make me smile again,^[a] for he is my God!

⁶ “A son honors his father, a servant honors his master. I am your Father and Master, yet you don’t honor me, O priests, but you despise my name.”

“Who? Us?” you say. “When did we ever despise your name?”

⁷ “When you offer polluted sacrifices on my altar.”

“Polluted sacrifices? When have we ever done a thing like that?”

“Every time you say, ‘Don’t bother bringing anything very valuable to offer to God!’ ⁸ You tell the people, ‘Lame animals are all right to offer on the altar of the Lord—yes, even the sick and the blind ones.’ And you claim this isn’t evil? Try it on your governor sometime—give him gifts like that—and see how pleased he is!

⁹ “‘God have mercy on us,’ you recite; ‘God be gracious to us!’ But when you bring that kind of gift, why should he show you any favor at all?

¹⁰ “Oh, to find one priest among you who would shut the doors and refuse this kind of sacrifice! I have no pleasure in you,” says the Lord Almighty, “and I will not accept your offerings.

¹¹ “But my name will be honored by the Gentiles from morning till night. All around the world they will offer sweet incense and pure offerings in honor of my name. For my name shall be great among the nations,” says the Lord Almighty. ¹² “But you dishonor it, saying that my altar is not important and encouraging people to bring cheap, sick animals to offer to me on it.

¹³ “You say, ‘Oh, it’s too difficult to serve the Lord and do what he asks.’ And you turn up your noses at the rules he has given you to obey. Think of it! Stolen animals, lame and sick—as offerings to God! Should I accept such offerings as these?” asks the Lord. ¹⁴ “Cursed is that man who promises a fine ram from his flock and substitutes a sick one to sacrifice to God. For I am a Great King,” says the Lord Almighty, “and my name is to be mightily revered among the Gentiles.”

2 ^1-2 Listen, you priests, to this warning from the Lord Almighty:

“If you don’t change your ways and give glory to my name, then I will send terrible punishment upon you, and instead of giving you blessings as I would like to, I will turn on you with curses. Indeed, I have cursed you already because you haven’t taken seriously the things that are most important to me.

³ “Take note that I will rebuke your children; I will spread on your faces the manure of these animals you offer me and throw you out like dung. ⁴ Then at last you will know it was I who sent you this warning to return to the laws I gave your father Levi,” says the Lord Almighty. ⁵ “The purpose of these laws was to give him life and peace, to be a means of showing his respect and awe for me by keeping them. ⁶ He passed on to the people all the truth he got from me. He did not lie or cheat; he walked with me, living a good and righteous life, and turned many from their lives of sin.

⁷ “Priests’ lips should flow with the knowledge of God so the people will learn God’s laws. The priests are the messengers of the Lord Almighty, and men should come to them for guidance. ⁸ But not to you! For you have left God’s paths. Your ‘guidance’ has caused many to stumble in sin. You have distorted the covenant of Levi and made it into a grotesque parody,” says the Lord Almighty. ⁹ “Therefore, I have made you contemptible in the eyes of all the people; for you have not obeyed me, but you let your favorites break the law without rebuke.”

^13-14 “Woe to you, Pharisees, and you other religious leaders. Hypocrites! For you won’t let others enter the Kingdom of Heaven and won’t go in yourselves. And you pretend to be holy, with all your long, public prayers in the streets, while you are evicting widows from their homes. Hypocrites! ¹⁵ Yes, woe upon you hypocrites. For you go to all lengths to make one convert, and then turn him into twice the son of hell you are yourselves. ¹⁶ Blind guides! Woe upon you! For your rule is that to swear ‘By God’s Temple’ means nothing—you can break that oath, but to swear ‘By the gold in the Temple’ is binding! ¹⁷ Blind fools! Which is greater, the gold, or the Temple that sanctifies the gold? ¹⁸ And you say that to take an oath ‘By the altar’ can be broken, but to swear ‘By the gifts on the altar’ is binding! ¹⁹ Blind! For which is greater, the gift on the altar, or the altar itself that sanctifies the gift? ²⁰ When you swear ‘By the altar,’ you are swearing by it and everything on it, ²¹ and when you swear ‘By the Temple,’ you are swearing by it and by God who lives in it. ²² And when you swear ‘By heavens,’ you are swearing by the Throne of God and by God himself.

²³ “Yes, woe upon you, Pharisees, and you other religious leaders—hypocrites! For you tithe down to the last mint leaf in your garden, but ignore the important things—justice and mercy and faith. Yes, you should tithe, but you shouldn’t leave the more important things undone. ²⁴ Blind guides! You strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.

²⁵ “Woe to you, Pharisees, and you religious leaders—hypocrites! You are so careful to polish the outside of the cup, but the inside is foul with extortion and greed. ²⁶ Blind Pharisees! First cleanse the inside of the cup, and then the whole cup will be clean.

²⁷ “Woe to you, Pharisees, and you religious leaders! You are like beautiful mausoleums—full of dead men’s bones, and of foulness and corruption. ²⁸ You try to look like saintly men, but underneath those pious robes of yours are hearts besmirched with every sort of hypocrisy and sin.