Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Give Your Best to the Lord

⁶ “A son honors his father. A slave honors his master. If I am a father, where is the honor I should have? If I am a master, where is the respect you should give me?” says the Lord who rules over all.

“You priests look down on me.

“But you ask, ‘How have we looked down on you?’

⁷ “You sacrifice ‘unclean’ food on my altar.

“But you ask, ‘How have we made you “unclean”?’

“You do it by looking down on my altar. ⁸ You sacrifice blind animals to me. Isn’t that wrong? You sacrifice disabled or sick animals. Isn’t that wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the Lord who rules over all.

⁹ “Now plead with God to be gracious to us! But as long as you give offerings like those, how can he accept you?” says the Lord.

¹⁰ “You might as well shut the temple doors! Then you would not light useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord. “I will not accept any of the offerings you bring. ¹¹ My name will be great among the nations. They will worship me from where the sun rises in the east to where it sets in the west. In every place, incense and pure offerings will be brought to me. That’s because my name will be great among the nations,” says the Lord.

¹² “But you treat my name as if it were not holy. You say the Lord’s altar is ‘unclean.’ And you look down on its food. ¹³ You say, ‘What a heavy load our work is!’ And you turn up your nose. You act as if you hate working for me,” says the Lord who rules over all.

“You bring animals that have been hurt. Or you bring disabled or sick animals. Then you dare to offer them to me as sacrifices! Should I accept them from you?” says the Lord. ¹⁴ “Suppose you have a male sheep or goat that does not have any flaws. And you promise to offer it to me. But then you sacrifice an animal that has flaws. When you do that, you cheat me. And anyone who cheats me is under my curse. After all, I am a great king,” says the Lord who rules over all. “The other nations have respect for my name. So why don’t you respect it?

The Lord Warns the Priests

2 “Now I am giving this warning to you priests. ² Listen to it. Honor me with all your heart,” says the Lord who rules over all. “If you do not, I will send a curse on you. I will turn your blessings into curses. In fact, I have already done that because you have not honored me with all your heart.

³ “Because of what you have done, I will punish your children. I will smear the waste from your sacrifices on your faces. And you will be carried off to the dump along with it. ⁴ You will know that I have given you this warning. I have warned you so that my covenant with Levi will continue,” says the Lord who rules over all. ⁵ “My covenant promised Levi life and peace. So I gave them to him. I required him to respect me. And he had great respect for my name. ⁶ True teaching came from his mouth. Nothing but the truth came from his lips. He walked with me in peace. He did what was right. He turned many people away from their sins.

⁷ “The lips of a priest should guard knowledge. After all, he is the messenger of the Lord who rules over all. And people seek instruction from his mouth. ⁸ But you have turned away from the right path. Your teaching has caused many people to trip and fall. You have broken my covenant with Levi,” says the Lord who rules over all. ⁹ “So I have caused all the people to hate you. They have lost respect for you. You have not done what I told you to do. Instead, you have favored one person over another in matters of the law.”

How Terrible for the Teachers of the Law and the Pharisees

^13-14 “How terrible it will be for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees! You pretenders! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter. And you will not let those enter who are trying to.

¹⁵ “How terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees! You pretenders! You travel everywhere to win one person to your faith. Then you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.

¹⁶ “How terrible for you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone makes a promise in the name of the temple, it means nothing. But anyone who makes a promise in the name of the gold of the temple must keep that promise.’ ¹⁷ You are blind and foolish! Which is more important? Is it the gold? Or is it the temple that makes the gold holy? ¹⁸ You also say, ‘If anyone makes a promise in the name of the altar, it means nothing. But anyone who makes a promise in the name of the gift on the altar must keep that promise.’ ¹⁹ You are blind! Which is more important? Is it the gift? Or is it the altar that makes the gift holy? ²⁰ So anyone making a promise in the name of the altar makes a promise in the name of it and everything on it. ²¹ And anyone making a promise in the name of the temple makes a promise in the name of it and the one who lives in it. ²² And anyone making a promise in the name of heaven makes a promise in the name of God’s throne and the one who sits on it.

²³ “How terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees! You pretenders! You give God a tenth of your spices, like mint, dill and cumin. But you have not practiced the more important things of the law, which are fairness, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the last things without failing to do the first. ²⁴ You blind guides! You remove the smallest insect from your food. But you swallow a whole camel!

²⁵ “How terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees! You pretenders! You clean the outside of a cup and dish. But on the inside you are full of greed. You only want to satisfy yourselves. ²⁶ Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish. Then the outside will also be clean.

²⁷ “How terrible for you, teachers of the law and Pharisees! You pretenders! You are like tombs that are painted white. They look beautiful on the outside. But on the inside they are full of the bones of the dead. They are also full of other things that are not pure and ‘clean.’ ²⁸ It is the same with you. On the outside you seem to be doing what is right. But on the inside you are full of what is wrong. You pretend to be what you are not.