Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

The Prayer of Someone in Exile ^(A)

The Prophecy against Eli's Family

²⁷ A prophet came to Eli with this message from the Lord: “When your ancestor Aaron and his family were slaves of the king of Egypt, I revealed myself to Aaron. ^28 (A)From all the tribes of Israel I chose his family to be my priests, to serve at the altar, to burn the incense, and to wear the ephod^[a] to consult me. And I gave them the right to keep a share of the sacrifices burned on the altar. ²⁹ Why, then, do you look with greed^[b] at the sacrifices and offerings which I require from my people? Why, Eli, do you honor your sons more than me by letting them fatten themselves on the best parts of all the sacrifices my people offer to me? ³⁰ I, the Lord God of Israel, promised in the past that your family and your clan would serve me as priests for all time. But now I say that I won't have it any longer! Instead, I will honor those who honor me, and I will treat with contempt those who despise me. ³¹ Listen, the time is coming when I will kill all the young men in your family and your clan, so that no man in your family will live to be old. ³² You will be troubled and look with envy^[c] on all the blessings I will give to the other people of Israel, but no one in your family will ever again live to old age. ³³ Yet I will keep one of your descendants alive, and he will serve me as priest. But he^[d] will become blind and lose all hope, and all your other descendants will die a violent death. ^34 (B)When your two sons Hophni and Phinehas both die on the same day, this will show you that everything I have said will come true. ³⁵ I will choose a priest who will be faithful to me and do everything I want him to. I will give him descendants, who will always serve in the presence of my chosen king. ³⁶ Any of your descendants who survive will have to go to that priest and ask him for money and food, and beg to be allowed to help the priests, in order to have something to eat.”

The Jews and the Law

¹⁷ What about you? You call yourself a Jew; you depend on the Law and boast about God; ¹⁸ you know what God wants you to do, and you have learned from the Law to choose what is right; ¹⁹ you are sure that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in darkness, ²⁰ an instructor for the foolish, and a teacher for the ignorant. You are certain that in the Law you have the full content of knowledge and of truth. ²¹ You teach others—why don't you teach yourself? You preach, “Do not steal”—but do you yourself steal? ²² You say, “Do not commit adultery”—but do you commit adultery? You detest idols—but do you rob temples? ²³ You boast about having God's law—but do you bring shame on God by breaking his law? ^24 (A)The scripture says, “Because of you Jews, the Gentiles speak evil of God.”

²⁵ If you obey the Law, your circumcision is of value; but if you disobey the Law, you might as well never have been circumcised. ²⁶ If the Gentile, who is not circumcised, obeys the commands of the Law, will not God regard him as though he were circumcised? ²⁷ And so you Jews will be condemned by the Gentiles because you break the Law, even though you have it written down and are circumcised; but they obey the Law, even though they are not physically circumcised. ²⁸ After all, who is a real Jew, truly circumcised? It is not the man who is a Jew on the outside, whose circumcision is a physical thing. ^29 (B)Rather, the real Jew is the person who is a Jew on the inside, that is, whose heart has been circumcised, and this is the work of God's Spirit, not of the written Law. Such a person receives praise from God, not from human beings.