Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
Second Poem[a]
Let Me See You
Bride:
8 Hark! I hear the voice of my beloved.
Look, here he comes,
leaping across the mountains[b]
bounding over the hills.
9 My beloved is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Look where he stands
behind our wall,
peering in through the windows,
gazing through the lattice.
10 My beloved speaks,
and he says to me:
“Arise, my beloved,
my fair one, and come!
11 [c]For see, the winter is past,
the rains are over and gone.
12 The flowers appear in the countryside;
the season of joyful songs has arrived,
and the voice of the turtledove
is heard in our land.
13 The fig tree puts forth its figs
and the blossoms on the vine give forth their fragrance.
Arise, my beloved,
my fair one, and come!”
6 Your arrows are sharp;
nations will lie beneath your feet;
the enemies of the king will lose heart.[a]
7 Your throne, O God,[b] will last forever and ever;
the scepter of your kingdom will be a scepter of justice.
8 You love righteousness and hate wickedness;
therefore God, your God, has established you above your fellow kings
by anointing you with the oil of gladness.
9 [c]All your robes are fragrant
with myrrh and aloes and cassia;
from palaces of ivory
stringed instruments bring joy to your heart.
17 Every good act of giving and every perfect gift are from above, coming down from the Father of all light. With him there is no alteration or shadow caused by change. 18 By his own choice he gave us birth through the way of truth so that we may be a kind of firstfruits of all his creation.
Exhortation To Practice Faith
19 Living by God’s Word.[a] Remember this, my beloved brethren: everyone should be quick to listen but slow to speak and slow to anger. 20 For human anger does not bring about the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore, rid yourselves of everything sordid and of every wicked excess, and welcome in all humility the word that is implanted in you and is able to save your souls.
22 Be doers of the word and not just hearers who only deceive themselves. 23 For anyone who listens to the word and fails to do it is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror. 24 After seeing his reflection, he goes off and immediately forgets what he looked like. 25 However, the one who looks intently at the perfect law of freedom and perseveres—not forgetting what he has heard but putting it into practice—will be blessed in everything he does.
26 If anyone thinks that he is religious but does not restrain his tongue, he is deceiving himself, and his religion is worthless. 27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and undefiled is this: to come to the aid of orphans and widows in their hardships and to keep oneself untarnished by the world.
Chapter 7
Traditions That Falsify the Law of God.[a] 1 When the Pharisees, along with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem, gathered around Jesus, 2 they noted that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3 For the Pharisees, and in fact all Jews, do not eat without thoroughly washing their hands, thereby observing the tradition of the elders. 4 And on coming from the marketplace they do not eat without first washing. In addition, there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and jugs and bronze kettles and tables.[b]
5 Therefore, the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but eat with unclean hands?” 6 He answered, “How rightly Isaiah prophesied about you hypocrites, as it is written:
‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
7 in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’
8 You thrust aside the commandment of God in order to preserve the traditions of men.”[c]
14 Clean and Unclean.[a] Then he called the people to him and said to them: “Listen to me, all of you, and understand. 15 There is nothing that goes into a person from outside that can defile him. The things that come out of a person are what defile him. [
21 For from within, from the human heart, come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, 22 adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly. 23 All these evils come from within, and they defile a person.”
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