Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 146

The Sabbatical Year^(A)

15 At the end of every seven years you shall grant a relinquishing of debts. ² This is the manner of the relinquishing: Every creditor that has loaned anything to his neighbor shall relinquish it. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, or of his brother, because it is called the Lord’s relinquishment. ³ You may collect it from a foreigner, but that which your brother has that is yours your hand shall release. ⁴ However, there will be no poor among you, for the Lord will greatly bless you in the land which the Lord your God has given you for an inheritance to possess, ⁵ if only you carefully obey the voice of the Lord your God, by carefully observing all these commandments which I command you today. ⁶ For the Lord your God will bless you, just as He promised you, and you will lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. You will reign over many nations, but they will not reign over you.

⁷ If there be among you a poor man, one of your brothers within any of your gates in your land which the Lord your God has given you, you must not harden your heart or shut your hand from your poor brother. ⁸ But you shall open your hand wide to him and must surely lend him what is sufficient for his need, in that which he lacks. ⁹ Beware lest there be a wicked thought in your heart, saying, “The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand,” and your eye be evil against your poor brother and you give him nothing, and he cry out to the Lord against you, and it become sin in you. ¹⁰ You must surely give to him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, because in this thing the Lord your God will bless you in all your works, and in all that you put your hand to do. ¹¹ For the poor will never cease from being in the land. Therefore, I command you, saying, “You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and needy in your land.”

¹⁵ For this reason He is the Mediator of a new covenant, since a death has occurred for the redemption of the sins that were committed under the first covenant, so that those who are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

¹⁶ For where there is a will, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. ¹⁷ For a will has force after men are dead, since it has no force at all while the testator lives. ¹⁸ So not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. ¹⁹ For when Moses had taught every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people, ²⁰ saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that God has commanded you to keep.”^{[a] 21} Likewise he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of worship with blood. ²² And according to the law almost everything must be cleansed with blood; without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Christ’s Sacrifice Takes Away Sin

²³ It was therefore necessary that the replicas of heavenly things be cleansed with these sacrifices, but that the heavenly things themselves be cleansed with better sacrifices than these. ²⁴ For Christ did not enter holy places made with hands, which are patterned after the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.