Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

ו (Vav)

¹⁰ “I stayed on the mountain forty days and nights, as previously; and Adonai listened to me that time too — Adonai would not destroy you. ¹¹ Then Adonai said to me, ‘Get up, and go on your way at the head of the people, so that they can enter and take possession of the land I swore to their ancestors that I would give them.’

(v) ¹² “So now, Isra’el, all that Adonai your God asks from you is to fear Adonai your God, follow all his ways, love him and serve Adonai your God with all your heart and all your being; ¹³ to obey, for your own good, the mitzvot and regulations of Adonai which I am giving you today. ¹⁴ See, the sky, the heaven beyond the sky, the earth and everything on it all belong to Adonai your God. ¹⁵ Only Adonai took enough pleasure in your ancestors to love them and choose their descendants after them — yourselves — above all peoples, as he still does today. ¹⁶ Therefore, circumcise the foreskin of your heart; and don’t be stiffnecked any longer! ¹⁷ For Adonai your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great, mighty and awesome God, who has no favorites and accepts no bribes. ¹⁸ He secures justice for the orphan and the widow; he loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing. ¹⁹ Therefore you are to love the foreigner, since you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. ²⁰ You are to fear Adonai your God, serve him, cling to him and swear by his name. ²¹ He is your praise, and he is your God, who has done for you these great and awesome things, which you have seen with your own eyes. ²² Your ancestors went down into Egypt with only seventy people, but now Adonai your God has made your numbers as many as the stars in the sky!

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have faith but has no actions to prove it? Is such “faith” able to save him? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food, ¹⁶ and someone says to him, “Shalom! Keep warm and eat hearty!” without giving him what he needs, what good does it do? ¹⁷ Thus, faith by itself, unaccompanied by actions, is dead.

¹⁸ But someone will say that you have faith and I have actions. Show me this faith of yours without the actions, and I will show you my faith by my actions! ¹⁹ You believe that “God is one”?^[a] Good for you! The demons believe it too — the thought makes them shudder with fear!

²⁰ But, foolish fellow, do you want to be shown that such “faith” apart from actions is barren? ²¹ Wasn’t Avraham avinu declared righteous because of actions when he offered up his son Yitz’chak on the altar? ²² You see that his faith worked with his actions; by the actions the faith was made complete; ²³ and the passage of the Tanakh was fulfilled which says, “Avraham had faith in God, and it was credited to his account as righteousness.”^[b] He was even called God’s friend.^{[c] 24} You see that a person is declared righteous because of actions and not because of faith alone.

²⁵ Likewise, wasn’t Rachav the prostitute also declared righteous because of actions when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another route? ²⁶ Indeed, just as the body without a spirit is dead, so too faith without actions is dead.