Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹³ The Lord God Almighty said to me, ‘Listen! Go and warn the Israelites that they have done wrong things. ¹⁴ I will punish them because they have not obeyed my Law. I will destroy the altars at Bethel. The horns of the altar will break off and they will fall to the ground. ¹⁵ I will destroy all their houses, the homes that they live in during the winter, and the ones that they live in during the summer. I will completely destroy all their big, beautiful houses, with their valuable things made from ivory.’ That is what the Lord says.

The Lord speaks against the people in Samaria

4 Listen to this message, you women who live on the hill in Samaria. You are like fat cows that do not work hard for food. You are like the cows in Bashan. They eat on very good land by the Jordan river. You do not give to weak people what they need. You are not fair to poor people. Then you sit down and you say to your husbands, ‘Bring us more to drink.’ ² The Lord God has made this promise and he speaks only true words. He says, ‘The time will come, when your enemies will take you away with meat hooks and fish hooks. ³ There are places in your city's walls where people have broken the walls. Your enemies will pull you through those places and they will throw you out. They will take you to that bad place called Harmon.^[a] None of you will stay here.’

The people in Israel have not learned to listen to God

⁴ The Lord also says, ‘You like to go to Bethel. You say that it is your holy place. And when you go there, you do wrong things. So go there, if you must, and do your bad things. Go to Gilgal, if you must, and do more bad things there. You bring your sacrifices there every morning as a gift. But that does not make me happy. Every three days, you bring your gifts. But that also does not make me happy. ⁵ You bring bread to say “thank you”. You even bring lots of it and you tell everyone, “Look at how much I have brought.” You really like to do that. So continue to do it, but it does not make me happy.’ The Lord God says this!

Jesus tells the Pharisees and teachers of God's Law to obey God

15 After that, a group of Pharisees and teachers of God's Law came from Jerusalem to talk to Jesus. ² They said, ‘Our leaders in past times taught us the right way to do everything. But your disciples do not obey the things that our leaders taught us. They do not wash their hands in the right way before they eat a meal. Why is that?’

³ Jesus replied, ‘God tells us the right way to obey him. But you refuse. Instead, you like to keep your own ideas. ⁴ God's Law says: “You must love your father and mother and obey them.” God also said, “A person should die if he says bad things against his father or against his mother.” ⁵ But you teach that a person may say to his father or to his mother, “I would have given gifts to help you. But I cannot do that because I have given them to God instead.” ⁶ Then, you let that person give nothing to his parents. He does not have to help them. This shows that you have not obeyed what God says is right. Instead, you have obeyed your own ideas. ⁷ You are hypocrites! What God's prophet Isaiah wrote about you long ago is true: