Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
97 How I love your teachings!
I think about them all day long.
98 Your commands make me wiser than my enemies
because they are mine forever.
99 I am wiser than all my teachers
because I think about your rules.
100 I have more understanding than the elders
because I follow your orders.
101 I have avoided every evil way
so I could obey your word.
102 I haven’t stopped obeying your laws
because you yourself are my teacher.
103 Your promises are so sweet to me.
They are like honey to my mouth!
104 Your orders give me understanding.
So I hate lying ways.
10 The Lord says, “Now, I will stand up
and show my greatness.
Now, I will become important to the people.
11 You people do useless things.
These things are like hay and straw.
A destructive wind will burn you like fire.
12 People will be burned until their bones become like lime.
They will burn quickly like dry thornbushes.”
13 You people in faraway lands, hear what I have done.
You people who are near me, learn about my power.
14 The sinners in Jerusalem are afraid.
The people who are separated from God shake with fear.
They say, “Can any of us live through this fire that destroys?
Who can live near this fire that burns on and on?”
15 A person might do what is right.
He might speak what is right.
He might refuse to take money unfairly.
He might refuse to take money to hurt others.
He might not listen to plans of murder.
He might refuse to think about evil.
16 This is the kind of person who will be safe.
He will be protected as he would be in a high, walled city.
He will always have bread,
and he will not run out of water.
16 You did not choose me; I chose you. And I gave you this work, to go and produce fruit. I want you to produce fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you anything you ask for in my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
Jesus Warns His Followers
18 “If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, then it would love you as it loves its own. But I have chosen you out of the world. So you don’t belong to it. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you: A servant is not greater than his master. If people did wrong to me, they will do wrong to you, too. And if they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours, too. 21 They will do all this to you because of me. They don’t know the One who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 He who hates me also hates my Father. 24 I did works among them that no one else has ever done. If I had not done those works, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen what I did, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25 But this happened so that what is written in their law would be true: ‘They hated me for no reason.’[a]
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.