Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Trouble will come to Israel's people

⁴ So listen to me, you who are cruel to helpless people. You try to destroy people who are poor and weak. ⁵ You say to yourselves, ‘We want the new moon festival to finish so that we can sell food again. We want our Sabbath day of rest to finish so that we can sell grain.’ But when you sell things, you cheat the people who buy from you. You deceive them with false weights, and you make the price too high. ⁶ When poor people cannot pay their debts, you buy them as your slaves. You pay a silver coin to buy them, which would not even buy a pair of shoes. You also mix dust with the grain that you sell.

⁷ The Lord has promised this: ‘You proud descendants of Jacob, I will never forget the wrong things that you have done.

Hallelujah, God helps weak people^[a]

Christians should pray for all people

2 So then, this is what I want to ask you first. Please pray for all people. Ask God to supply what they need. Ask God to help them. Thank God for what he does for everyone. ² Pray in that way for kings and for all rulers and people who have authority. Pray for God to help them, so that we may live our lives without trouble or danger. Then we can live in a good way that respects God and other people. ³ It is good that we should pray like that. It makes God, our Saviour, happy. ⁴ He wants to save all people. He wants everyone to know his message about what is true.

⁵ There is only one God. There is also only one person who brings God and people together. That person is Christ Jesus, who became a man himself. ⁶ He died as a sacrifice on behalf of all people, to pay the debt of their sins. He died at the proper time for God to show his purpose clearly. ⁷ God chose me as his apostle, to tell this same message to people. I am telling you what is true. I am not telling lies! Yes, he sent me to teach his true message to the Gentiles, so that they would believe in him.

A story about a man who thought carefully

16 Jesus told another story to his disciples: ‘A rich man had a servant who worked for him. The servant took care of the money and things that belonged to the man. Then some people told the rich man that his servant was wasting his master's things. ² So the master sent someone to bring his servant to him. He said to his servant, “I am hearing bad stories about you. So write down everything that you have done with my money and my things. Then you must stop working for me.”

³ “I must think about what I can do,” the servant said to himself. “My master will not let me work for him any longer. I am not strong enough to dig in the ground. I would be ashamed to ask other people for money. ⁴ I must stop working for my master. But I know what I can do so that people will then accept me into their homes.”

⁵ Many people had a debt that they had not paid back to the master. So the servant told those people to come to him. He asked the first man, “How big is your debt to my master?” ⁶ The man replied, “I have to give him 100 barrels of oil.”^[a] The servant said to him, “Here is the paper with your debt written down on it. Take the paper. Sit down now and write 50 barrels there.”^[b]

⁷ He asked the next man, “How big is your debt to my master?” The man replied, “I have to give him 100 baskets of wheat.” The servant replied, “Here is the paper with your debt written down on it. Take the paper and write 80 baskets.” ’^[c]

⁸ Jesus then said, ‘The servant in the story was not honest. But his master spoke well about what he had done. It would help the servant later in his life. People that do not obey God think carefully. They know how to do well with people who are like themselves. But people who live in God's light often think less carefully. ⁹ So I tell you this. People may get money in wrong ways. But you should use it to do good to those who need help. Then they will be your friends. You will die, one day. Then those people will be happy to see you in that place where people live for all time.

¹⁰ If you can trust a person with a very small thing, you can also trust him with bigger things. And if you cannot trust a person with a very small thing, you cannot trust him with big things. ¹¹ So if people cannot trust you with money in this world, nobody will trust you with really valuable things. ¹² And if people cannot trust you with other people's things, nobody will give you things for yourself.

¹³ A slave cannot work for two masters at the same time. Maybe he will hate one of the masters, but he will love the other one. Or he will work well for one master, but he will think bad things about the other one. God and money are like different masters. You cannot work for both of them.’