Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹² Keep the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, just as the Lord your God has commanded you. ¹³ Six days you shall labor and do all your work, ¹⁴ but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your livestock, nor the foreigner that is within your gates, so that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. ¹⁵ Remember that you were a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

Psalm 81

For the Music Director. According to The Gittith. A Psalm of Asaph.

⁵ For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

⁷ But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, the excellency of the power being from God and not from ourselves. ⁸ We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; ⁹ persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰ and always carrying around in the body the death of the Lord Jesus, that also the life of Jesus might be expressed in our bodies. ¹¹ For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that also the life of Jesus might be manifested in our mortal flesh. ¹² So then, death works in us, but life in you.

The Question About the Sabbath^(A)

²³ He went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. As they went, His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain. ²⁴ The Pharisees said to Him, “Look, why are they doing on the Sabbath what is not lawful?”

²⁵ He said to them, “Have you never read what David did, when he and those who were with him were in need and hungry: ²⁶ how he went into the house of God, in the days Abiathar was the high priest, and ate the ritual bread, which is lawful only for the priests to eat, and also gave it to those who were with him?”

²⁷ Then He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. ²⁸ So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

The Man With a Withered Hand^(B)

3 Again, He entered the synagogue, and there was a man who had a withered hand. ² They watched Him to see whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. ³ He said to the man who had the withered hand, “Stand up.”

⁴ Then He said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do evil on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they kept silent.

⁵ When He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, “Stretch your hand forward.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored as whole as the other. ⁶ Then the Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against Him, how to kill Him.