Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Human Wickedness^[a](A)

²⁰ Jerusalem, look! Your enemies are coming down from the north! Where are the people entrusted to your care, your people you were so proud of ²¹ What will you say when people you thought were your friends conquer you and rule over you?^[a] You will be in pain like a woman giving birth. ²² If you ask why all this has happened to you—why your clothes have been torn off and you have been raped—it is because your sin is so terrible. ²³ Can people change the color of their skin, or a leopard remove its spots? If they could, then you that do nothing but evil could learn to do what is right. ²⁴ The Lord will scatter you like straw that is blown away by the desert wind. ²⁵ He has said that this will be your fate. This is what he has decided to do with you, because you have forgotten him and have trusted in false gods. ²⁶ The Lord himself will strip off your clothes and expose you to shame. ²⁷ He has seen you do the things he hates. He has seen you go after pagan gods on the hills and in the fields, like a man lusting after his neighbor's wife or like a stallion after a mare. People of Jerusalem, you are doomed! When will you ever be pure?

1 From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by order of God our Savior and Christ Jesus our hope—

^2 (A)To Timothy, my true son in the faith:

May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord give you grace, mercy, and peace.

Warnings against False Teaching

³ I want you to stay in Ephesus, just as I urged you when I was on my way to Macedonia. Some people there are teaching false doctrines, and you must order them to stop. ⁴ Tell them to give up those legends and those long lists of ancestors, which only produce arguments; they do not serve God's plan, which is known by faith. ⁵ The purpose of this order is to arouse the love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and a genuine faith. ⁶ Some people have turned away from these and have lost their way in foolish discussions. ⁷ They want to be teachers of God's law, but they do not understand their own words or the matters about which they speak with so much confidence.

⁸ We know that the Law is good if it is used as it should be used. ⁹ It must be remembered, of course, that laws are made, not for good people, but for lawbreakers and criminals, for the godless and sinful, for those who are not religious or spiritual, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, ¹⁰ for the immoral, for sexual perverts, for kidnappers, for those who lie and give false testimony or who do anything else contrary to sound doctrine. ¹¹ That teaching is found in the gospel that was entrusted to me to announce, the Good News from the glorious and blessed God.