Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
He
33 O Eternal One, show me how to live according to Your statutes,
and I will keep them always.
34 Grant me understanding so that I can keep Your law
and keep it wholeheartedly.
35 Guide me to walk in the way You commanded
because I take joy in it.
36 Turn my head and my heart to Your decrees
and not to sinful gain.
37 Keep my eyes from gazing upon worthless things,
and give me true life according to Your plans.
38 Verify Your word to Your servant,
which will lead me to worship You.
39 Take away the scorn that I dread
because Your actions are just and good.
40 Look and see—I long for Your guidance;
restore me in Your righteousness.
10 One day there was a man who had an Israelite mother and Egyptian father who got into a fight with an Israelite inside the camp. 11 The first man uttered a curse and disparaged the name of the Eternal One. The people brought him to Moses to decide what must be done. (His mother was Shelomith, Dibri’s daughter. Dibri was from the Dan tribe.) 12 They kept him in custody until the Eternal One’s decision became clear to them.
13 The Eternal One told Moses what to do.
Eternal One: 14 Take the man who cursed and disparaged Me outside the camp and have everyone who was a witness to what he said place their hands on his head. Then have the entire community stone him. 15 Tell the Israelites, “Anyone who curses His God or disparages His name must bear his sin and suffer the punishment. 16 Any person who blasphemes My name must be put to death. Then you must have the entire community join in stoning him. Any person—whether native-born or an outsider—who disparages My name must be put to death.”
17 Anyone who kills another person must be put to death. 18 Anyone who kills an animal is to compensate his owner for it, life for life. 19 Anyone who injures his neighbor must have done to him what he did to the other. 20 If he breaks a man’s bone, his own bone must be broken. If he puts out a man’s eye, his own eye must be put out. If he knocks out a man’s tooth, his own tooth must be knocked out.[a] Whatever a person does to harm another must be done to him in return. 21 Any person who takes the life of an animal is to compensate his owner for it, but any person who takes the life of another human being must be put to death. 22 This law applies to everyone equally, both native-born Israelites and outsiders. I am the Eternal One, your God.
The “law of retaliation,” as it is called, is designed to curb cruelty. It limits the kind and extent of retaliation a person can suffer when he deliberately injures another.
23 Moses told the Israelites what God had decided, so they took the man who had uttered the curse outside the camp and stoned him. The Israelites did exactly as the Eternal One had instructed Moses.
7 Jesus: If you judge other people, then you will find that you, too, are being judged. 2 Indeed, you will be judged by the very standards to which you hold other people.
So when someone is tempted to criticize his neighbor because her house isn’t clean enough, she seems ill-tempered, or she is a bit flighty—he should remember those same standards and judgments will come back to him. No one should criticize his neighbor for being short-tempered one morning, when he is snippish and snappish and waspish all the time.
Jesus: 3 Why is it that you see the dust in your brother’s or sister’s eye, but you can’t see what is in your own eye? 4 Don’t ignore the wooden plank in your eye, while you criticize the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eyelashes. 5 That type of criticism and judgment is a sham! Remove the plank from your own eye, and then perhaps you will be able to see clearly how to help your brother flush out his sawdust.
6 Don’t give precious things to dogs. Don’t cast your pearls before swine. If you do, the pigs will trample the pearls with their little pigs’ feet, and then they will turn back and attack you.
Now Jesus returns to prayer, an important and sometimes difficult topic. Here He gives the very essence of prayer.
7 Just ask and it will be given to you; seek after it and you will find. Continue to knock and the door will be opened for you. 8 All who ask receive. Those who seek, find what they seek. And he who knocks, will have the door opened.
9 Think of it this way: if your son asked you for bread, would you give him a stone? Of course not—you would give him a loaf of bread. 10 If your son asked for a fish, would you give him a snake? No, to be sure, you would give him a fish—the best fish you could find. 11 So if you, who are sinful, know how to give your children good gifts, how much more so does your Father in heaven, who is perfect, know how to give great gifts to His children!
12 This is what our Scriptures come to teach: in everything, in every circumstance, do to others as you would have them do to you.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.