Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

24 To Moshe [Adonai] said, “Come up to Adonai — you, Aharon, Nadav, Avihu, and seventy of the leaders of Isra’el. Prostrate yourselves at a distance, ² while Moshe alone approaches Adonai — the others are not to approach, and the people are not to go up with him.” ³ Moshe came and told the people everything Adonai had said, including all the rulings. The people answered with one voice: “We will obey every word Adonai has spoken.”

⁴ Moshe wrote down all the words of Adonai. He rose early in the morning, built an altar at the base of the mountain and set upright twelve large stones to represent the twelve tribes of Isra’el. ⁵ He sent the young men of the people of Isra’el to offer burnt offerings and sacrifice peace offerings of oxen to Adonai. ⁶ Moshe took half of the blood and put it in basins; the other half of the blood he splashed against the altar. ⁷ Then he took the book of the covenant and read it aloud, so that the people could hear; and they responded, “Everything that Adonai has spoken, we will do and obey.” ⁸ Moshe took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant which Adonai has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

¹⁷ But if you call yourself a Jew and rest on Torah and boast about God ¹⁸ and know his will and give your approval to what is right, because you have been instructed from the Torah; ¹⁹ and if you have persuaded yourself that you are a guide to the blind, a light in the darkness, ²⁰ an instructor for the spiritually unaware and a teacher of children, since in the Torah you have the embodiment of knowledge and truth; ²¹ then, you who teach others, don’t you teach yourself? Preaching, “Thou shalt not steal,”^[a] do you steal? ²² Saying, “Thou shalt not commit adultery,”^[b] do you commit adultery? Detesting idols, do you commit idolatrous acts? ²³ You who take such pride in Torah, do you, by disobeying the Torah, dishonor God? — ²⁴ as it says in the Tanakh, “For it is because of you that God’s name is blasphemed by the Goyim.”^{[c] 25} For circumcision is indeed of value if you do what Torah says. But if you are a transgressor of Torah, your circumcision has become uncircumcision! ²⁶ Therefore, if an uncircumcised man keeps the righteous requirements of the Torah, won’t his uncircumcision be counted as circumcision? ²⁷ Indeed, the man who is physically uncircumcised but obeys the Torah will stand as a judgment on you who have had a b’rit-milah and have Torah written out but violate it! ²⁸ For the real Jew is not merely Jewish outwardly: true circumcision is not only external and physical. ²⁹ On the contrary, the real Jew is one inwardly; and true circumcision is of the heart, spiritual not literal; so that his praise comes not from other people but from God.