Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

^11-13 Let us then be eager to know this rest for ourselves, and let us beware that no one misses it through falling into the same kind of unbelief as those we have mentioned. For the Word that God speaks is alive and active; it cuts more keenly than any two-edged sword: it strikes through to the place where soul and spirit meet, to the innermost intimacies of a man’s being: it exposes the very thoughts and motives of a man’s heart. No creature has any cover from the sight of God; everything lies naked and exposed before the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

For our help and comfort—Jesus the great High Priest

^14-15 Seeing that we have a great High Priest who has entered the inmost Heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to our faith. For we have no superhuman High Priest to whom our weaknesses are unintelligible—he himself has shared fully in all our experience of temptation, except that he never sinned.

¹⁶ Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with fullest confidence, that we may receive mercy for our failures and grace to help in the hour of need.

Jesus shows the danger of riches

¹⁷ As he began to take the road again (after welcoming the children), a man came running up and fell at his feet, and asked him, “Good Master, what must I do to be sure of eternal life?”

^18-19 “I wonder why you call me good,” returned Jesus. “No one is good—only God. You know the commandments, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder’, ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not bear false witness,’ ‘Do not defraud,’ ‘Honour your father and your mother’.”

²⁰ “Master,” he replied, “I have kept carefully all these since I was quite young.”

²¹ Jesus looked steadily at him, and his heart warmed towards him. Then he said, “There is one thing you still want. Go and sell everything you have, give the money away to the poor—you will have riches in Heaven. And then come back and follow me.”

^22-23 At these words his face fell and he went away in deep distress, for he was very rich. Then Jesus looked round at them all, and said to his disciples, “How difficult it is for those who have great possessions to enter the kingdom of God!”

^24-25 The disciples were staggered at these words, but Jesus continued, “Children, you don’t know how hard it can be to get into the kingdom of Heaven. Why, a camel could more easily squeeze through the eye of a needle than a rich man get into the kingdom of God.”

²⁶ At this their astonishment knew no bounds, and they said to each other, “Then who can possibly be saved?”

²⁷ Jesus looked straight at them and said, “Humanly speaking it is impossible, but not with God. Everything is possible with God.”

²⁸ Then Peter burst out, “But look, we have left everything and followed you!”

^29-31 “I promise you,” returned Jesus, “nobody leaves home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or property for my sake and the Gospel’s without getting back a hundred times over, now in this present life, homes and brothers and sisters, mothers and children and land—though not without persecution—and in the next world eternal life. But many who are first now will then be last, and the last now will then be first.”