Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
15 Adonai said to him, “Go back by way of the Dammesek Desert. When you get there, anoint Haza’el to be king over Aram. 16 Also anoint Yehu the son of Nimshi to be king over Isra’el, and anoint Elisha the son of Shafat of Avel-M’cholah to be prophet after you.
19 So he left and found Elisha the son of Shafat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen; he himself was behind the twelfth. Eliyahu went over to him and threw his cloak on him. 20 He left the oxen, ran after Eliyahu and said, “Please let me kiss my father and mother good-bye; then I will follow you.” He answered, “Go; but return, because of what I did to you.” 21 Elisha stopped following him. Then he took the yoke of oxen, slaughtered them, cooked their meat over the wooden yokes of the oxen and gave it to the people to eat. Then he got up, went after Eliyahu and became his servant.
16 (0) Mikhtam. By David:
(1) Protect me, God,
for you are my refuge.
2 I said to Adonai, “You are my Lord;
I have nothing good outside of you.”
3 The holy people in the land are the ones
who are worthy of honor; all my pleasure is in them.
4 Those who run after another god
multiply their sorrows;
To such gods I will not offer
drink offerings of blood
or take their names on my lips.
5 Adonai, my assigned portion, my cup:
you safeguard my share.
6 Pleasant places were measured out for me;
I am content with my heritage.
7 I bless Adonai, my counselor;
at night my inmost being instructs me.
8 I always set Adonai before me;
with him at my right hand, I can never be moved;
9 so my heart is glad, my glory rejoices,
and my body too rests in safety;
10 for you will not abandon me to Sh’ol,
you will not let your faithful one see the Abyss.
11 You make me know the path of life;
in your presence is unbounded joy,
in your right hand eternal delight.
5 What the Messiah has freed us for is freedom! Therefore, stand firm, and don’t let yourselves be tied up again to a yoke of slavery.
13 For, brothers, you were called to be free. Only do not let that freedom become an excuse for allowing your old nature to have its way. Instead, serve one another in love. 14 For the whole of the Torah is summed up in this one sentence: “Love your neighbor as yourself”;[a] 15 but if you go on snapping at each other and tearing each other to pieces, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other!
16 What I am saying is this: run your lives by the Spirit. Then you will not do what your old nature wants. 17 For the old nature wants what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit wants what is contrary to the old nature. These oppose each other, so that you find yourselves unable to carry out your good intentions. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, then you are not in subjection to the system that results from perverting the Torah into legalism.
19 And it is perfectly evident what the old nature does. It expresses itself in sexual immorality, impurity and indecency; 20 involvement with the occult and with drugs; in feuding, fighting, becoming jealous and getting angry; in selfish ambition, factionalism, intrigue 21 and envy; in drunkenness, orgies and things like these. I warn you now as I have warned you before: those who do such things will have no share in the Kingdom of God!
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 humility, self control. Nothing in the Torah stands against such things.
24 Moreover, those who belong to the Messiah Yeshua have put their old nature to death on the stake, along with its passions and desires. 25 Since it is through the Spirit that we have Life, let it also be through the Spirit that we order our lives day by day.
51 As the time approached for him to be taken up into heaven, he made his decision to set out for Yerushalayim. 52 He sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village in Shomron to make preparations for him. 53 However, the people there would not let him stay, because his destination was Yerushalayim. 54 When the talmidim Ya‘akov and Yochanan saw this, they said, “Sir, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy them?”[a] 55 But he turned and rebuked them.[b] 56 And they went on to another village.
57 As they were traveling on the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 Yeshua answered him, “The foxes have holes, and the birds flying about have nests, but the Son of Man has no home of his own.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me!” but the man replied, “Sir, first let me go away and bury my father.” 60 Yeshua said, “Let the dead bury their own dead; you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God!” 61 Yet another said, “I will follow you, sir, but first let me say good-by to the people at home.” 62 To him Yeshua said, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and keeps looking back is fit to serve in the Kingdom of God.”
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.