Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 125

Israel’s Stability

A song of ascents.

The Sin of Favoritism

2 My brothers, do not show favoritism as you hold on to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ.^{(A) 2} For example, a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and a poor man dressed in dirty clothes also comes in. ³ If you look with favor on the man wearing the fine clothes and say, “Sit here in a good place,” and yet you say to the poor man, “Stand over there,” or, “Sit here on the floor by my footstool,” ⁴ haven’t you discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

⁵ Listen, my dear brothers: Didn’t God choose the poor in this world^(B) to be rich in faith^(C) and heirs^(D) of the kingdom that He has promised to those who love Him? ⁶ Yet you dishonored that poor man.^(E) Don’t the rich oppress you and drag^(F) you into the courts? ⁷ Don’t they blaspheme the noble name that was pronounced over you at your baptism?^(G)

⁸ Indeed, if you keep the royal law prescribed in the Scripture, Love your neighbor as yourself,^(H)[a] you are doing well. ⁹ But if you show favoritism,^(I) you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. ¹⁰ For whoever keeps the entire law, yet fails in one point, is guilty of breaking it all.^(J)

¹¹ For He who said, Do not commit adultery,^[a] also said, Do not murder.^(A)[b] So if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you are a lawbreaker.

¹² Speak and act as those who will be judged by the law of freedom.^{(B) 13} For judgment is without mercy to the one who hasn’t shown mercy.^(C) Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Faith and Works

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can his faith^[a] save him?

¹⁵ If a brother or sister is without clothes and lacks daily food ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it?^{(A) 17} In the same way faith, if it doesn’t have works, is dead by itself.

A Gentile Mother’s Faith

²⁴ He got up and departed from^(A) there to the region of Tyre^(B) and Sidon.^[a](C) He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, but He could not escape notice. ²⁵ Instead, immediately after hearing about Him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit^(D) came and fell at His feet.^{(E) 26} Now the woman was Greek,^(F) a Syrophoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to drive the demon^(G) out of her daughter. ²⁷ He said to her, “Allow the children to be satisfied first, because it isn’t right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”^(H)

²⁸ But she replied to Him, “Lord,^(I) even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

²⁹ Then He told her, “Because of this reply, you may go. The demon has gone out of your daughter.” ³⁰ When she went back to her home, she found her child lying on the bed, and the demon was gone.

Jesus Does Everything Well

³¹ Again, leaving the region of Tyre,^(J) He went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee,^(K) through^[b] the region of the Decapolis.^{(L) 32} They brought to Him a deaf^(M) man who also had a speech difficulty,^(N) and begged Jesus to lay His hand on^(O) him. ³³ So He took him away from the crowd privately. After putting His fingers in the man’s ears and spitting,^(P) He touched his tongue. ³⁴ Then, looking up to heaven,^(Q) He sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphatha!”^[c] (that is, “Be opened!”). ³⁵ Immediately his ears were opened,^(R) his speech difficulty was removed,^[d] and he began to speak clearly.^{(S) 36} Then He ordered them to tell no one,^(T) but the more He would order them, the more they would proclaim^(U) it.

³⁷ They were extremely astonished and said, “He has done everything well!^(V) He even makes deaf^(W) people hear, and people unable to speak,^(X) talk!”