Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹⁵ The Lord your God will send you a prophet, an Israelite like me. You must listen to him. ¹⁶ This is what you asked the Lord your God to give you on the day of the assembly at Mount Horeb. You said, “We never want to hear the voice of the Lord our God or see this raging fire again. If we do, we’ll die!”

¹⁷ The Lord told me, “What they’ve said is good. ¹⁸ So I will send them a prophet, an Israelite like you. I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. ¹⁹ Whoever refuses to listen to the words that prophet speaks in my name will answer to me. ²⁰ But any prophet who dares to say something in my name that I didn’t command him to say or who speaks in the name of other gods must die.”

Advice about Food Offered to False Gods

8 Now, concerning food offered to false gods: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes people arrogant, but love builds them up. ² Those who think they know something still have a lot to learn. ³ But if they love God, they are known by God.

⁴ Now about eating food that was offered to false gods: We know that the false gods in this world don’t really exist and that no god exists except the one God. ⁵ People may say that there are gods in heaven and on earth—many gods and many lords, as they would call them. ⁶ But for us,

⁷ But not everyone knows this. Some people are so used to worshiping false gods that they believe they are eating food offered to a false god. So they feel guilty because their conscience is weak.

⁸ Food will not affect our relationship with God. We are no worse off if we eat ⌞that food⌟ and no better off if we don’t. ⁹ But be careful that by using your freedom you don’t somehow make a believer who is weak in faith fall into sin. ¹⁰ For example, suppose someone with a weak conscience sees you, who have this knowledge, eating in the temple of a false god. Won’t you be encouraging that person to eat food offered to a false god? ¹¹ In that case, your knowledge is ruining a believer whose faith is weak, a believer for whom Christ died. ¹² When you sin against other believers in this way and harm their weak consciences, you are sinning against Christ.

¹³ Therefore, if eating food ⌞offered to false gods⌟ causes other believers to lose their faith, I will never eat that kind of food so that I won’t make other believers lose their faith.

Jesus Forces an Evil Spirit out of a Man^(A)

²¹ Then they went to Capernaum. On the next day of rest—a holy day, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. ²² The people were amazed at his teachings. Unlike their experts in Moses’ Teachings, he taught them with authority.

²³ At that time there was a man in the synagogue who was controlled by an evil spirit. He shouted, ²⁴ “What do you want with us, Jesus from Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

²⁵ Jesus ordered the spirit, “Keep quiet, and come out of him!” ²⁶ The evil spirit threw the man into convulsions and came out of him with a loud shriek.

²⁷ Everyone was stunned. They said to each other, “What is this? This is a new teaching that has authority behind it! He gives orders to evil spirits, and they obey him.”

²⁸ The news about him spread quickly throughout the surrounding region of Galilee.