Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Job’s Faithfulness

1 There once was a man in the land of Uz^[a] named Job. The man was blameless as well as upright. He feared God and kept away from evil.

Satan’s Second Attack on Job

2 Some time later, divine beings again^[a] presented themselves to the Lord, and Satan accompanied them to present himself to the Lord. ² The Lord asked Satan, “Where have you come from?”

In response, Satan told the Lord, “From wandering all over the earth and walking back and forth throughout it.”

³ The Lord asked Satan, “Have you considered^[b] my servant Job? There is no one like him on earth. The man is blameless as well as upright. He fears God and keeps away from evil. He remains firm in his integrity, even though you have been urging me to overwhelm him without cause.”

⁴ Satan answered the Lord, “Skin for skin! The man will give up everything that he owns in exchange for his health.^{[c] 5} However, stretch out your hand^[d] and strike his bones and flesh, and he’ll curse you to your face, won’t he?”

⁶ Then the Lord told Satan, “Very well then, he is under your control.^[e] Just preserve his life.”^[f]

⁷ So Satan left the Lord’s presence and struck Job with terrible boils from the sole of his feet to the top of his head. ⁸ Job^[g] took a broken piece of pottery to scrape himself while sitting among the ashes.

Job Refuses to Curse God

⁹ Then his wife told him, “Do you remain firm in your integrity? Curse God and die!”

¹⁰ But he replied to her, “You’re talking like foolish women do. Are we to accept^[h] what is good from God but not tragedy?”

Throughout all of this, Job did not sin by what he said.^[i]

Davidic

A Man of Integrity Pleads for Justice

God Has Spoken to Us

1 God, having spoken in former times in fragmentary and varied fashion to our forefathers by the prophets, ² has in these last days spoken to us by a Son whom he appointed to be the heir of everything and through whom he also made the universe. ³ He is the reflection^[a] of God’s glory and the exact likeness of his being, and he holds everything together by his powerful word. After he had provided a cleansing from sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Highest Majesty ⁴ and became as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is better than theirs.

Jesus is the Source of Our Salvation

⁵ For he did not put the coming world we are talking about under the control of angels. ⁶ Instead, someone has declared somewhere,

Now when God^[b] put everything under him, he left nothing outside his control. However, at the present time we do not yet see everything put under him. ⁹ But we do see someone who was made a little lower than the angels. He is Jesus, who is crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of^[c] God he might experience^[d] death for everyone.

¹⁰ It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering as part of his plan to glorify many children, ¹¹ because both the one who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified all have the same Father.^[e] That is why Jesus^[f] is not ashamed to call them brothers ¹² when he says, “I will announce your name to my brothers. I will praise you within the congregation.”^[g]

² Some Pharisees came to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

³ “What did Moses command you?” he responded.

⁴ They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to divorce her.”^[a]

⁵ But Jesus told them, “It was because of your hardness of heart that he wrote this command for you. ⁶ But from the beginning of creation, ‘God^[b] made them male and female.’^{[c] 7} That’s why ‘a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, ⁸ and the two will become one flesh.’^[d] So they’re no longer two, but one flesh. ⁹ Therefore, what God has joined together, man must never separate.”

¹⁰ Back in the house, the disciples asked him about this again. ¹¹ So he told them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. ¹² And if a woman^[e] divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

Jesus Blesses the Little Children^(A)

¹³ Some people^[f] were bringing little children to Jesus^[g] to have him touch them. But the disciples rebuked those who brought^[h] them. ¹⁴ When Jesus saw this, he became furious and told them, “Let the little children come to me, and stop keeping them away, because the kingdom of God belongs to people like these. ¹⁵ I tell all of you^[i] with certainty, whoever doesn’t receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” ¹⁶ Then after he had hugged the children,^[j] he tenderly blessed them as he laid his hands on them.