Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
9 God, I will sing a new song to you;
I will play to you on the ten-stringed harp.
10 You give victory to kings.
You save your servant David from cruel swords.
11 Save me, rescue me from these foreigners.
They are liars; they are dishonest.
12 Let our sons in their youth
grow like plants.
Let our daughters be
like the decorated stones in the Temple.
13 Let our barns be filled
with crops of all kinds.
Let our sheep in the fields have
thousands and tens of thousands of lambs.
14 Let our cattle be strong.
Let no one break in.
Let there be no war,
no screams in our streets.
15 Happy are those who are like this;
happy are the people whose God is the Lord.
The Friends Speak
5 Who is this coming out of the desert,
leaning on her lover?
The Man Speaks to the Woman
I woke you under the apple tree
where you were born;
there your mother gave birth to you.
6 Put me like a seal on your heart,
like a seal on your arm.
Love is as strong as death;
jealousy is as strong as the grave.
Love bursts into flames
and burns like a hot fire.
7 Even much water cannot put out the flame of love;
floods cannot drown love.
If a man offered everything in his house for love,
people would totally reject it.
9 Then Jesus said to them, “You cleverly ignore the commands of God so you can follow your own teachings. 10 Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’[a] and ‘Anyone who says cruel things to his father or mother must be put to death.’[b] 11 But you say a person can tell his father or mother, ‘I have something I could use to help you, but it is Corban—a gift to God.’ 12 You no longer let that person use that money for his father or his mother. 13 By your own rules, which you teach people, you are rejecting what God said. And you do many things like that.”
14 After Jesus called the crowd to him again, he said, “Every person should listen to me and understand what I am saying. 15 There is nothing people put into their bodies that makes them unclean. People are made unclean by the things that come out of them. [ 16 Let those with ears use them and listen.]”[c]
17 When Jesus left the people and went into the house, his followers asked him about this story. 18 Jesus said, “Do you still not understand? Surely you know that nothing that enters someone from the outside can make that person unclean. 19 It does not go into the mind, but into the stomach. Then it goes out of the body.” (When Jesus said this, he meant that no longer was any food unclean for people to eat.)
20 And Jesus said, “The things that come out of people are the things that make them unclean. 21 All these evil things begin inside people, in the mind: evil thoughts, sexual sins, stealing, murder, adultery, 22 greed, evil actions, lying, doing sinful things, jealousy, speaking evil of others, pride, and foolish living. 23 All these evil things come from inside and make people unclean.”
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.