Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

BETH

²¹ When you vow a vow to Yahweh your God, you shall not be slack to pay it, for Yahweh your God will surely require it of you; and it would be sin in you. ²² But if you refrain from making a vow, it shall be no sin in you. ²³ You shall observe and do that which has gone out of your lips. Whatever you have vowed to Yahweh your God as a free will offering, which you have promised with your mouth, you must do. ²⁴ When you come into your neighbor’s vineyard, then you may eat your fill of grapes at your own pleasure; but you shall not put any in your container. ²⁵ When you come into your neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck the ears with your hand; but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor’s standing grain.

24 When a man takes a wife and marries her, then it shall be, if she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a certificate of divorce, put it in her hand, and send her out of his house. ² When she has departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. ³ If the latter husband hates her, and writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; or if the latter husband dies, who took her to be his wife; ⁴ her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife after she is defiled; for that would be an abomination to Yahweh. You shall not cause the land to sin, which Yahweh your God gives you for an inheritance.

¹⁰ When you lend your neighbor any kind of loan, you shall not go into his house to get his pledge. ¹¹ You shall stand outside, and the man to whom you lend shall bring the pledge outside to you. ¹² If he is a poor man, you shall not sleep with his pledge. ¹³ You shall surely restore to him the pledge when the sun goes down, that he may sleep in his garment and bless you. It shall be righteousness to you before Yahweh your God.

¹⁴ You shall not oppress a hired servant who is poor and needy, whether he is one of your brothers or one of the foreigners who are in your land within your gates. ¹⁵ In his day you shall give him his wages, neither shall the sun go down on it, for he is poor and sets his heart on it, lest he cry against you to Yahweh, and it be sin to you.

2 My brothers, don’t hold the faith of our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with partiality. ² For if a man with a gold ring, in fine clothing, comes into your synagogue,^[a] and a poor man in filthy clothing also comes in, ³ and you pay special attention to him who wears the fine clothing and say, “Sit here in a good place;” and you tell the poor man, “Stand there,” or “Sit by my footstool” ⁴ haven’t you shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? ⁵ Listen, my beloved brothers. Didn’t God choose those who are poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom which he promised to those who love him? ⁶ But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you and personally drag you before the courts? ⁷ Don’t they blaspheme the honorable name by which you are called?

⁸ However, if you fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,”^(A) you do well. ⁹ But if you show partiality, you commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors. ¹⁰ For whoever keeps the whole law, and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. ¹¹ For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,”^(B) also said, “Do not commit murder.”^(C) Now if you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. ¹² So speak and so do as men who are to be judged by the law of freedom. ¹³ For judgment is without mercy to him who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.