Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

12 About that time, Jesus was walking through the grain fields on a Sabbath day. His disciples were hungry. They began to pick some of the grain and to eat it.

² The Pharisees saw them. They said to Jesus, `Look! Your disciples are doing what is not right on the Sabbath day.'

³ But Jesus said to them, `Have you not read what David did? He and his men who were with him were hungry.

⁴ He went into God's house. Some bread was there for God. David's men ate it. David did not have the right to eat it, nor the men who were with him. Only the priests have the right to eat it. But David took the bread and ate it. He also gave some of it to the men who were with him.

⁵ `Have you never read in the books of the law that the priests in the temple break the Sabbath law on the Sabbath day? They are not punished for it.

⁶ I tell you, there is someone here who is greater than the temple.

⁷ `You do not know what this means, "I want you to be kind; I do not want a sacrifice." If you knew, then you would not have said what they did was wrong. What they did was not wrong.

⁸ The Son of Man rules over the Sabbath day.'