Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Moses Reminds Israel to Be Loyal to the Lord

4 Israel, listen to the laws and rules I am about to teach you. Obey them so that you will live and be able to enter and take possession of the land that the Lord God of your ancestors is giving you. ² Never add anything to what I command you, or take anything away from it. Then you will be able to obey the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.

⁶ Faithfully obey these laws. This will show the people of the world your wisdom and insight. When they hear about all these laws, they will say, “What wise and insightful people there are in this great nation!”

⁷ What great nation ever had their gods as near to them as the Lord our God is near to us whenever we pray to him? ⁸ Or what other great nation has such fair laws and rules as all these teachings I am giving you today?

⁹ However, be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you don’t forget the things which you have seen with your own eyes. Don’t let them fade from your memory as long as you live. Teach them to your children and grandchildren.

A psalm by David.

¹⁷ Every good present and every perfect gift comes from above, from the Father who made the sun, moon, and stars. The Father doesn’t change like the shifting shadows produced by the sun and the moon.

¹⁸ God decided to give us life through the word of truth to make us his most important creatures.

¹⁹ Remember this, my dear brothers and sisters: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and should not get angry easily. ²⁰ An angry person doesn’t do what God approves of. ²¹ So get rid of all immoral behavior and all the wicked things you do. Humbly accept the word that God has placed in you. This word can save you.

²² Do what God’s word says. Don’t merely listen to it, or you will fool yourselves. ²³ If someone listens to God’s word but doesn’t do what it says, he is like a person who looks at his face in a mirror, ²⁴ studies his features, goes away, and immediately forgets what he looks like. ²⁵ However, the person who continues to study God’s perfect laws that make people free and who remains committed to them will be blessed. People like that don’t merely listen and forget; they actually do what God’s laws say.

²⁶ If a person thinks that he is religious but can’t control his tongue, he is fooling himself. That person’s religion is worthless. ²⁷ Pure, unstained religion, according to God our Father, is to take care of orphans and widows when they suffer and to remain uncorrupted by this world.

Jesus Challenges the Pharisees’ Traditions^(A)

7 The Pharisees and some experts in Moses’ Teachings who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus. ² They saw that some of his disciples were unclean ^[a] because they ate without washing their hands.

³ (The Pharisees, like all other Jewish people, don’t eat unless they have properly washed their hands. They follow the traditions of their ancestors. ⁴ When they come from the marketplace, they don’t eat unless they have washed first. They have been taught to follow many other rules. For example, they must also wash their cups, jars, brass pots, and dinner tables.^[b])

⁵ The Pharisees and the experts in Moses’ Teachings asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples follow the traditions taught by our ancestors? They are unclean because they don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

⁶ Jesus told them, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites in Scripture:

⁸ “You abandon the commandments of God to follow human traditions.”

¹⁴ Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and try to understand! ¹⁵ Nothing that goes into a person from the outside can make him unclean. It’s what comes out of a person that makes him unclean.

²¹ Evil thoughts, sexual sins, stealing, murder, ²² adultery, greed, wickedness, cheating, shameless lust, envy, cursing, arrogance, and foolishness come from within a person. ²³ All these evils come from within and make a person unclean.”