Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A shiggaion ^[a] by David; he sang it to the Lord about the ⌞slanderous⌟ words of Cush, a descendant of Benjamin.

⁷ “Son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman for the people of Israel. Listen to what I say, and warn them for me. ⁸ Suppose I say to a wicked person, ‘You wicked person, you will certainly die,’ and you say nothing to warn him to change his ways. That wicked person will die because of his sin, and I will hold you responsible for his death. ⁹ But if you warn a wicked person to turn from his ways and he doesn’t turn from them, then he will die because of his sin. However, you will save yourself.

¹⁰ “Son of man, say to the people of Israel, ‘You have said this, “Our wickedness and our sins weigh us down, and we are rotting away because of them. How can we live?” ’

¹¹ “Tell them, ‘As I live, declares the Almighty Lord, I don’t want wicked people to die. Rather, I want them to turn from their ways and live. Change the way you think and act! Turn from your wicked ways! Do you want to die, people of Israel?’

¹² “Son of man, say to your people, ‘The right things that a righteous person has done will not save him when he rebels. The wicked things that a wicked person has done will not make him stumble when he turns from his wickedness. The righteous person will not live when he sins.’ ¹³ I may promise the righteous person that he will certainly live. But if he trusts in the right things that he has done and he does evil, none of the right things that he has done will be remembered. He will die because of the evil things he has done. ¹⁴ I may warn the wicked person that he will certainly die. But suppose he turns from his sin and does what is fair and right. ¹⁵ He returns the security for a loan, pays back everything he stole, lives by the rules of life, and does nothing evil. Then he will certainly live. He will not die. ¹⁶ None of the sins that he has done will be remembered. He has done what is fair and right. He will certainly live.

¹⁷ “But your people say, ‘The Lord’s way is unfair.’ Yet, their ways are unfair. ¹⁸ If the righteous person turns from the right things that he has done and does evil, he will die because of it. ¹⁹ If the wicked person turns from his wickedness and does what is fair and right, he will live because of it. ²⁰ Yet, the people of Israel say, ‘The Lord’s way is unfair.’ I will judge each of you by your own ways, people of Israel.”

¹⁹ Jesus said to the Jews, “I can guarantee this truth: The Son cannot do anything on his own. He can do only what he sees the Father doing. Indeed, the Son does exactly what the Father does. ²⁰ The Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing. The Father will show him even greater things to do than these things so that you will be amazed. ²¹ In the same way that the Father brings back the dead and gives them life, the Son gives life to anyone he chooses.

²² “The Father doesn’t judge anyone. He has entrusted judgment entirely to the Son ²³ so that everyone will honor the Son as they honor the Father. Whoever doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him. ²⁴ I can guarantee this truth: Those who listen to what I say and believe in the one who sent me will have eternal life. They won’t be judged because they have already passed from death to life.

²⁵ “I can guarantee this truth: A time is coming (and is now here) when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who respond to it will live. ²⁶ The Father is the source of life, and he has enabled the Son to be the source of life too.

²⁷ “He has also given the Son authority to pass judgment because he is the Son of Man.^{[a] 28} Don’t be surprised at what I’ve just said. A time is coming when all the dead will hear his voice, ²⁹ and they will come out of their tombs. Those who have done good will come back to life and live. But those who have done evil will come back to life and will be judged. ³⁰ I can’t do anything on my own. As I listen ⌞to the Father⌟, I make my judgments. My judgments are right because I don’t try to do what I want but what the one who sent me wants.

³¹ “If I testify on my own behalf, what I say isn’t true. ³² Someone else testifies on my behalf, and I know that what he says about me is true. ³³ You sent people to John ⌞the Baptizer⌟, and he testified to the truth. ³⁴ But I don’t depend on human testimony. I’m telling you this to save you. ³⁵ John was a lamp that gave off brilliant light. For a time you enjoyed the pleasure of his light. ³⁶ But I have something that testifies more favorably on my behalf than John’s testimony. The tasks that the Father gave me to carry out, these tasks which I perform, testify on my behalf. They prove that the Father has sent me. ³⁷ The Father who sent me testifies on my behalf. You have never heard his voice, and you have never seen his form. ³⁸ So you don’t have the Father’s message within you, because you don’t believe in the person he has sent. ³⁹ You study the Scriptures in detail because you think you have the source of eternal life in them. These Scriptures testify on my behalf. ⁴⁰ Yet, you don’t want to come to me to get ⌞eternal⌟ life.