◀ All Reading Plans / Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary) / Psalm 119:97-104 (God’s word is sweet); Isaiah 33:10-16 (The righteous will eat); John 15:16-25 (I chose you) (New English Translation)

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August 25, 2027

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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with thematically matched Old and New Testament readings.

Duration: 1245 days

Psalm 119:97-104

מ (Mem)

⁹⁷O how I love your law!
All day long I meditate on it.
⁹⁸Your commandments^[a] make me wiser than my enemies,
for I am always aware of them.
⁹⁹I have more insight than all my teachers,
for I meditate on your rules.
¹⁰⁰I am more discerning than those older than I,
for I observe your precepts.
¹⁰¹I stay away^[b] from every evil path,
so that I might keep your instructions.^[c]
¹⁰²I do not turn aside from your regulations,
for you teach me.
¹⁰³Your words are sweeter
in my mouth than honey!^[d]
¹⁰⁴Your precepts give me discernment.
Therefore I hate all deceitful actions.^[e]

Isaiah 33:10-16

¹⁰“Now I will rise up,” says the Lord.
“Now I will exalt myself;
now I will magnify myself.^[a]
¹¹You conceive straw,^[b]
you give birth to chaff;
your breath is a fire that destroys you.^[c]
¹²The nations will be burned to ashes;^[d]
like thorn bushes that have been cut down, they will be set on fire.
¹³You who are far away, listen to what I have done!
You who are close by, recognize my strength.”
¹⁴Sinners are afraid in Zion;
panic^[e] grips the godless.^[f]
They say,^[g] “Who among us can coexist with destructive fire?
Who among us can coexist with unquenchable^[h] fire?”
¹⁵The one who lives^[i] uprightly^[j]
and speaks honestly;
the one who refuses to profit from oppressive measures
and rejects a bribe;^[k]
the one who does not plot violent crimes^[l]
and does not seek to harm others^[m]—
¹⁶this is the person who will live in a secure place;^[n]
he will find safety in the rocky, mountain strongholds;^[o]
he will have food
and a constant supply of water.

John 15:16-25

¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you^[a] and appointed you to go and bear^[b] fruit, fruit that remains,^[c] so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. ¹⁷This^[d] I command you—to love one another.

The World’s Hatred

¹⁸“If the world hates you, be aware^[e] that it hated me first.^[f] ¹⁹If you belonged to the world,^[g] the world would love you as its own.^[h] However, because you do not belong to the world,^[i] but I chose you out of the world, for this reason^[j] the world hates you.^[k] ²⁰Remember what^[l] I told you, ‘A slave^[m] is not greater than his master.’^[n] If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they obeyed^[o] my word, they will obey^[p] yours too. ²¹But they will do all these things to you on account of^[q] my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.^[r] ²²If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin.^[s] But they no longer have any excuse for their sin. ²³The one who hates me hates my Father too. ²⁴If I had not performed^[t] among them the miraculous deeds^[u] that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin.^[v] But now they have seen the deeds^[w] and have hated both me and my Father.^[x] ²⁵Now this happened^[y] to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without reason.’^[z]

Footnotes

John 15:16 sn You did not choose me, but I chose you. If the disciples are now elevated in status from slaves to friends, they are friends who have been chosen by Jesus, rather than the opposite way round. Again this is true of all Christians, not just the twelve, and the theme that Christians are “chosen” by God appears frequently in other NT texts (e.g., Rom 8:33; Eph 1:4ff.; Col 3:12; and 1 Pet 2:4). Putting this together with the comments on 15:14 one may ask whether the author sees any special significance at all for the twelve. Jesus said in John 6:70 and 13:18 that he chose them, and 15:27 makes clear that Jesus in the immediate context is addressing those who have been with him from the beginning. In the Fourth Gospel the twelve, as the most intimate and most committed followers of Jesus, are presented as the models for all Christians, both in terms of their election and in terms of their mission.
John 15:16 tn Or “and yield.”
John 15:16 sn The purpose for which the disciples were appointed (“commissioned”) is to go and bear fruit, fruit that remains. The introduction of the idea of “going” at this point suggests that the fruit is something more than just character qualities in the disciples’ own lives, but rather involves fruit in the lives of others, i.e., Christian converts. There is a mission involved (cf. John 4:36). The idea that their fruit is permanent, however, relates back to vv. 7-8, as does the reference to asking the Father in Jesus’ name. It appears that as the imagery of the vine and the branches develops, the “fruit” which the branches produce shifts in emphasis from qualities in the disciples’ own lives in John 15:2, 4, 5 to the idea of a mission which affects the lives of others in John 15:16. The point of transition would be the reference to fruit in 15:8.
John 15:17 tn Grk “These things.”
John 15:18 tn Grk “know.”
John 15:18 tn Grk “it hated me before you.”
John 15:19 tn Grk “if you were of the world.”
John 15:19 tn The words “you as” are not in the original but are supplied for clarity.
John 15:19 tn Grk “because you are not of the world.”
John 15:19 tn Or “world, therefore.”
John 15:19 sn I chose you out of the world…the world hates you. Two themes are brought together here. In 8:23 Jesus had distinguished himself from the world in addressing his Jewish opponents: “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.” In 15:16 Jesus told the disciples “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you.” Now Jesus has united these two ideas as he informs the disciples that he has chosen them out of the world. While the disciples will still be “in” the world after Jesus has departed, they will not belong to it, and Jesus prays later in John 17:15-16 to the Father, “I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” The same theme also occurs in 1 John 4:5-6: “They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us.” Thus the basic reason why the world hates the disciples (as it hated Jesus before them) is because they are not of the world. They are born from above, and are not of the world. For this reason the world hates them.
John 15:20 tn Grk “Remember the word that I said to you.”
John 15:20 tn See the note on the word “slaves” in 4:51.
John 15:20 sn A slave is not greater than his master. Jesus now recalled a statement he had made to the disciples before, in John 13:16. As the master has been treated, so will the slaves be treated also. If the world had persecuted Jesus, then it would also persecute the disciples. If the world had kept Jesus’ word, it would likewise keep the word of the disciples. In this statement there is the implication that the disciples would carry on the ministry of Jesus after his departure; they would in their preaching and teaching continue to spread the message which Jesus himself had taught while he was with them. And they would meet with the same response, by and large, that he encountered.
John 15:20 tn Or “if they kept.”
John 15:20 tn Or “they will keep.”
John 15:21 tn Or “because of.”
John 15:21 tn Jesus is referring to God as “the one who sent me.”
John 15:22 tn Grk “they would not have sin” (an idiom).sn Jesus now describes the guilt of the world. He came to these people with both words (15:22) and sign-miracles (15:24), yet they remained obstinate in their unbelief, and this sin of unbelief was without excuse. Jesus was not saying that if he had not come and spoken to these people they would be sinless; rather he was saying that if he had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of the sin of rejecting him and the Father he came to reveal. Rejecting Jesus is the one ultimate sin for which there can be no forgiveness, because the one who has committed this sin has at the same time rejected the only cure that exists. Jesus spoke similarly to the Pharisees in 9:41: “If you were blind, you would have no sin (same phrase as here), but now you say ‘We see’ your sin remains.”
John 15:24 tn Or “If I had not done.”
John 15:24 tn Grk “the works.”
John 15:24 tn Grk “they would not have sin” (an idiom).
John 15:24 tn The words “the deeds” are supplied to clarify from context what was seen. Direct objects in Greek were often omitted when clear from the context.
John 15:24 tn Or “But now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father.” It is possible to understand both the “seeing” and the “hating” to refer to both Jesus and the Father, but this has the world “seeing” the Father, which seems alien to the Johannine Jesus. (Some point out John 14:9 as an example, but this is addressed to the disciples, not to the world.) It is more likely that the “seeing” refers to the miraculous deeds mentioned in the first half of the verse. Such an understanding of the first “both—and” construction is apparently supported by BDF §444.3.
John 15:25 tn The words “this happened” are not in the Greek text but are supplied to complete an ellipsis.
John 15:25 sn A quotation from Pss 35:19; 69:4. As a technical term law (νόμος, nomos) is usually restricted to the Pentateuch (the first five books of the OT), but here it must have a broader reference, since the quotation is from Ps 35:19 or Ps 69:4. The latter is the more likely source for the quoted words, since it is cited elsewhere in John’s Gospel (2:17 and 19:29, in both instances in contexts associated with Jesus’ suffering and death).

New English Translation (NET)

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Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

מ (Mem)

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Footnotes

The World’s Hatred

Footnotes