Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

ב Beth

²¹ When you make a vow to the Lord your God, you must not be slow to pay it, for the Lord your God will surely require it of you, and it would be a sin to you. ²² But if you refrain from making a vow, it will not be a sin to you. ²³ That which goes out of your lips you must keep and do, even a freewill offering, just as you have vowed to the Lord your God, what you have promised with your mouth.

²⁴ When you go into your neighbor’s vineyard, you may eat grapes to your fill at your own pleasure, but you may not put any in your basket. ²⁵ When you enter into the standing grain of your neighbor, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you may not use a sickle on your neighbor’s standing grain.

Laws About Marriage and Divorce

24 When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, then let him write her a bill of divorce and put it in her hand and send her out of his house. ² When she departs out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. ³ If the second husband rejects her and writes her a bill of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the second husband who took her to be his wife dies, ⁴ her first husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, since she is defiled, for that is abomination before the Lord, and you must not bring sin on the land, which the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

¹⁰ When you do lend your brother anything, you may not go into his house to take his pledge. ¹¹ You must stand outside, and the man to whom you lend must bring the pledge outside to you. ¹² If the man is poor, you may not sleep with his pledge. ¹³ In any case, you must return the pledge to him when the sun goes down, so that he may sleep in his own cloak and bless you, and it will be righteousness to you before the Lord your God.

¹⁴ You may not oppress a hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of your foreigners who are in your land within your towns. ¹⁵ You must give him his wages on that very day before the sun sets, for he is poor, and sets his heart on it, lest he cry against you to the Lord, and it be a sin to you.

Warning Against Partiality

2 My brothers, have faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, without partiality. ² For if a man with a gold ring, in fine clothing, comes into your assembly, and also a poor man in ragged clothing comes in, ³ and you have respect for him who wears the fine clothing and say to him, “Sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor, “Stand there,” or “Sit here under my footstool,” ⁴ have you not then become partial among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

⁵ Listen, my beloved brothers. Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He has promised to those who love Him? ⁶ But you have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you and drag you before the judgment seats? ⁷ Do they not blaspheme that worthy name by which you are called?

⁸ If you fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,”^[a] you are doing well. ⁹ But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as sinners. ¹⁰ For whoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point is guilty of breaking the whole law. ¹¹ For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,”^[b] also said, “Do not kill.”^[c] Now if you do not commit adultery, yet you kill, you have become a lawbreaker.

¹² So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. ¹³ For he who has shown no mercy will have judgment without mercy, for mercy triumphs over judgment.