Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁶⁵ You have dealt well with Your servant, O Lord, according to Your promise.

⁶⁶ Teach me good judgment, wise and right discernment, and knowledge, for I have believed (trusted, relied on, and clung to) Your commandments.

⁶⁷ Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now Your word do I keep [hearing, receiving, loving, and obeying it].

⁶⁸ You are good and kind and do good; teach me Your statutes.

⁶⁹ The arrogant and godless have put together a lie against me, but I will keep Your precepts with my whole heart.

⁷⁰ Their hearts are as fat as grease [their minds are dull and brutal], but I delight in Your law.

⁷¹ It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes.

⁷² The law from Your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.

² If there is found among you within any of your towns which the Lord your God gives you a man or woman who does what is wicked in the sight of the Lord your God by transgressing His covenant,

³ Who has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or the sun or moon or any of the host of the heavens, which I have forbidden,

⁴ And it is told and you hear of it, then inquire diligently. And if it is certainly true that such an abomination has been committed in Israel,

⁵ Then you shall bring forth to your town’s gates that man or woman who has done that wicked thing and you shall stone that man or woman to death.

⁶ On the evidence of two or three witnesses he who is worthy of death shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness.

⁷ The hands of the witnesses shall be the first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from among you.

⁸ If there arises a matter too hard for you in judgment—between one kind of bloodshed and another, between one legality and another, between one kind of assault and another, matters of controversy within your towns—then arise and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses.

⁹ And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall consult them and they shall make clear to you the decision.

¹⁰ And you shall do according to the decision which they declare to you from that place which the Lord chooses; and you shall be watchful to do according to all that they tell you;

¹¹ According to the decision of the law which they shall teach you and the judgment which they shall announce to you, you shall do; you shall not turn aside from the verdict they give you, ^[a]either to the right hand or the left.

¹² The man who does presumptuously and will not listen to the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God or to the judge, that man shall die; so you shall purge the evil from Israel.

¹³ And all the people shall hear and [reverently] fear, and not act presumptuously again.

13 Let every person be loyally subject to the governing (civil) authorities. For there is no authority except from God [by His permission, His sanction], and those that exist do so by God’s appointment.^(A)

² Therefore he who resists and sets himself up against the authorities resists what God has appointed and arranged [in divine order]. And those who resist will bring down judgment upon themselves [receiving the penalty due them].

³ For civil authorities are not a terror to [people of] good conduct, but to [those of] bad behavior. Would you have no dread of him who is in authority? Then do what is right and you will receive his approval and commendation.

⁴ For he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, [you should dread him and] be afraid, for he does not bear and wear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant to execute His wrath (punishment, vengeance) on the wrongdoer.

⁵ Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God’s wrath and escape punishment, but also as a matter of principle and for the sake of conscience.

⁶ For this same reason you pay taxes, for [the civil authorities] are official servants under God, devoting themselves to attending to this very service.

⁷ Render to all men their dues. [Pay] taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, and honor to whom honor is due.