Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

2 And he said to me: “Stand up, son of dust,^[a] and I will talk to you.”

² And the Spirit entered into me as he spoke, and set me on my feet.

³ “Son of dust,” he said, “I am sending you to the nation of Israel, to a nation rebelling against me. They and their fathers have kept on sinning against me until this very hour. ⁴ For they are a hard-hearted, stiff-necked people. But I am sending you to give them my messages—the messages of the Lord God. ⁵ And whether they listen or not (for remember, they are rebels), they will at least know they have had a prophet among them.

123 O God enthroned in heaven, I lift my eyes to you.

² We look to Jehovah our God for his mercy and kindness just as a servant keeps his eyes upon his master or a slave girl watches her mistress for the slightest signal.

^3-4 Have mercy on us, Lord, have mercy. For we have had our fill of contempt and of the scoffing of the rich and proud.

^2-3 Fourteen years ago I^[a] was taken up to heaven for a visit. Don’t ask me whether my body was there or just my spirit, for I don’t know; only God can answer that. But anyway, there I was in paradise, ⁴ and heard things so astounding that they are beyond a man’s power to describe or put in words (and anyway I am not allowed to tell them to others). ⁵ That experience is something worth bragging about, but I am not going to do it. I am going to boast only about how weak I am and how great God is to use such weakness for his glory. ⁶ I have plenty to boast about and would be no fool in doing it, but I don’t want anyone to think more highly of me than he should from what he can actually see in my life and my message.

⁷ I will say this: because these experiences I had were so tremendous, God was afraid I might be puffed up by them; so I was given a physical condition which has been a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to hurt and bother me and prick my pride. ⁸ Three different times I begged God to make me well again.

⁹ Each time he said, “No. But I am with you; that is all you need. My power shows up best in weak people.” Now I am glad to boast about how weak I am; I am glad to be a living demonstration of Christ’s power, instead of showing off my own power and abilities. ¹⁰ Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite happy about “the thorn,” and about insults and hardships, persecutions and difficulties; for when I am weak, then I am strong—the less I have, the more I depend on him.

6 Soon afterwards he left that section of the country and returned with his disciples to Nazareth, his hometown. ^2-3 The next Sabbath he went to the synagogue to teach, and the people were astonished at his wisdom and his miracles because he was just a local man like themselves.

“He’s no better than we are,” they said. “He’s just a carpenter, Mary’s boy, and a brother of James and Joseph, Judas and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us.” And they were offended!

⁴ Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his hometown and among his relatives and by his own family.” ⁵ And because of their unbelief he couldn’t do any mighty miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them. ⁶ And he could hardly accept the fact that they wouldn’t believe in him.

Then he went out among the villages, teaching.

⁷ And he called his twelve disciples together and sent them out two by two, with power to cast out demons. ^8-9 He told them to take nothing with them except their walking sticks—no food, no knapsack, no money, not even an extra pair of shoes or a change of clothes.

¹⁰ “Stay at one home in each village—don’t shift around from house to house while you are there,” he said. ¹¹ “And whenever a village won’t accept you or listen to you, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave; it is a sign that you have abandoned it to its fate.”

¹² So the disciples went out, telling everyone they met to turn from sin. ¹³ And they cast out many demons and healed many sick people, anointing them with olive oil.