Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
23 The reply of Job:
2 “My complaint today is still a bitter one, and my punishment far more severe than my fault deserves. 3 Oh, that I knew where to find God—that I could go to his throne and talk with him there. 4-5 I would tell him all about my side of this argument, and listen to his reply, and understand what he wants. 6 Would he merely overpower me with his greatness? No, he would listen with sympathy. 7 Fair and honest men could reason with him and be acquitted by my Judge.
8 “But I search in vain. I seek him here, I seek him there and cannot find him. 9 I seek him in his workshop in the north but cannot find him there; nor can I find him in the south; there, too, he hides himself.
16-17 God has given me a fainting heart; he, the Almighty, has terrified me with darkness all around me, thick, impenetrable darkness everywhere.
22 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why do you refuse to help me or even to listen to my groans? 2 Day and night I keep on weeping, crying for your help, but there is no reply— 3-4 for you are holy.
The praises of our fathers surrounded your throne; they trusted you and you delivered them. 5 You heard their cries for help and saved them; they were never disappointed when they sought your aid.
6 But I am a worm, not a man, scorned and despised by my own people and by all mankind. 7 Everyone who sees me mocks and sneers and shrugs. 8 “Is this the one who rolled his burden on the Lord?” they laugh. “Is this the one who claims the Lord delights in him? We’ll believe it when we see God rescue him!”
9-11 Lord, how you have helped me before![a] You took me safely from my mother’s womb and brought me through the years of infancy. I have depended upon you since birth; you have always been my God. Don’t leave me now, for trouble is near and no one else can possibly help.
12 I am surrounded by fearsome enemies, strong as the giant bulls from Bashan. 13 They come at me with open jaws, like roaring lions attacking their prey. 14 My strength has drained away like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart melts like wax; 15 my strength has dried up like sun-baked clay; my tongue sticks to my mouth, for you have laid me in the dust of death.
12 For whatever God says to us is full of living power: it is sharper than the sharpest dagger, cutting swift and deep into our innermost thoughts and desires with all their parts, exposing us for what we really are. 13 He knows about everyone, everywhere. Everything about us is bare and wide open to the all-seeing eyes of our living God; nothing can be hidden from him to whom we must explain all that we have done.
14 But Jesus the Son of God is our great High Priest who has gone to heaven itself to help us; therefore let us never stop trusting him. 15 This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses since he had the same temptations we do, though he never once gave way to them and sinned. 16 So let us come boldly to the very throne of God and stay there to receive his mercy and to find grace to help us in our times of need.
17 As he was starting out on a trip, a man came running to him and knelt down and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to get to heaven?”
18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus asked. “Only God is truly good! 19 But as for your question—you know the commandments: don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, respect your father and mother.”
20 “Teacher,” the man replied, “I’ve never once[a] broken a single one of those laws.”
21 Jesus felt genuine love for this man as he looked at him. “You lack only one thing,” he told him; “go and sell all you have and give the money to the poor—and you shall have treasure in heaven—and come, follow me.”
22 Then the man’s face fell, and he went sadly away, for he was very rich.
23 Jesus watched him go, then turned around and said to his disciples, “It’s almost impossible for the rich to get into the Kingdom of God!”
24 This amazed them. So Jesus said it again: “Dear children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches[b] to enter the Kingdom of God. 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.”
26 The disciples were incredulous! “Then who in the world can be saved, if not a rich man?” they asked.
27 Jesus looked at them intently, then said, “Without God, it is utterly impossible. But with God everything is possible.”
28 Then Peter began to mention all that he and the other disciples had left behind. “We’ve given up everything to follow you,” he said.
29 And Jesus replied, “Let me assure you that no one has ever given up anything—home, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, or property—for love of me and to tell others the Good News, 30 who won’t be given back, a hundred times over, homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and land—with persecutions!
“All these will be his here on earth, and in the world to come he shall have eternal life. 31 But many people who seem to be important now will be the least important then; and many who are considered least here shall be greatest there.”
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.