Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Praise God Who Helps the Weak

The Special Seventh Year

15 At the end of every seven years, you must forget about collecting what people owe you. ² This is how you must do it: Everyone who has loaned money must forget the loan. He must not make his neighbor or brother pay it back. This is the Lord’s time for canceling what people owe. ³ You may make a foreigner pay what he owes you. But you must not collect what your brother owes you. ⁴ But there should be no poor people among you. The Lord your God will richly bless you in the land he is giving you to own. ⁵ He will bless you if you obey him completely. But you must be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. ⁶ The Lord your God will bless you as he promised. You will lend to other nations. But you will not need to borrow from them. You will rule over many nations. But none will rule over you.

⁷ There might be a poor man among you. He might be in one of the towns of the land the Lord your God is giving you. Do not be selfish or greedy toward your poor brother. ⁸ But give freely to him. Freely lend him whatever he needs. ⁹ Beware of evil thoughts. Don’t think, “The seventh year is near. It’s the year to forget what people owe.” You might be mean to your needy brother. You might not give him anything. Then he will complain to the Lord about you. And the Lord will find you guilty of sin. ¹⁰ Give freely to the poor person. Do not wish that you didn’t have to give. The Lord your God will bless your work and everything you touch. ¹¹ There will always be poor people in the land. So I command you to give freely to your brothers. Give freely to the poor and needy in your land.

¹⁵ So Christ brings a new agreement from God to his people. Those who are called by God can now receive the blessings that God has promised. These blessings will last forever. They can have those things because Christ died so that the people who lived under the first agreement could be set free from sin.

¹⁶ When there is a will,^[a] it must be proven that the man who wrote that will is dead. ¹⁷ A will means nothing while the man is alive. It can be used only after he dies. ¹⁸ This is why even the first agreement could not begin without blood to show death. ¹⁹ First, Moses told all the people every command in the law. Next he took the blood of calves and mixed it with water. Then he used red wool and a branch of the hyssop plant to sprinkle the blood and water on the book of the law and on all the people. ²⁰ He said, “This is the blood which begins the agreement that God commanded you to obey.”^{[b] 21} In the same way, Moses sprinkled the blood on the Holy Tent and over all the things used in worship. ²² The law says that almost everything must be made clean by blood. And sins cannot be forgiven without blood to show death.

Christ’s Death Takes Away Sins

²³ So the copies of the real things in heaven had to be made clean by animal sacrifices. But the real things in heaven need much better sacrifices. ²⁴ For Christ did not go into the Most Holy Place made by men. It is only a copy of the real one. He went into heaven itself. He is there now before God to help us.