Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

2 My brothers, practice the faith of our Lord Yeshua, the glorious Messiah, without showing favoritism. ² Suppose a man comes into your synagogue wearing gold rings and fancy clothes, and also a poor man comes in dressed in rags. ³ If you show more respect to the man wearing the fancy clothes and say to him, “Have this good seat here,” while to the poor man you say, “You, stand over there,” or, “Sit down on the floor by my feet,” ⁴ then aren’t you creating distinctions among yourselves, and haven’t you made yourselves into judges with evil motives?

⁵ Listen, my dear brothers, hasn’t God chosen the poor of the world to be rich in faith and to receive the Kingdom which he promised to those who love him? ⁶ But you despise the poor! Aren’t the rich the ones who oppress you and drag you into court? ⁷ Aren’t they the ones who insult the good name of Him to whom you belong? ⁸ If you truly attain the goal of Kingdom Torah, in conformity with the passage that says, “Love your neighbor as yourself,”^[a] you are doing well. ⁹ But if you show favoritism, your actions constitute sin, since you are convicted under the Torah as transgressors.

¹⁰ For a person who keeps the whole Torah, yet stumbles at one point, has become guilty of breaking them all.

¹¹ For the One who said, “Don’t commit adultery,”^[a] also said, “Don’t murder.”^[b] Now, if you don’t commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the Torah.

¹² Keep speaking and acting like people who will be judged by a Torah which gives freedom. ¹³ For judgment will be without mercy toward one who doesn’t show mercy; but mercy wins out over judgment.

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers, if someone claims to have faith but has no actions to prove it? Is such “faith” able to save him? ¹⁵ Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food, ¹⁶ and someone says to him, “Shalom! Keep warm and eat hearty!” without giving him what he needs, what good does it do? ¹⁷ Thus, faith by itself, unaccompanied by actions, is dead.

²⁴ Next, Yeshua left that district and went off to the vicinity of Tzor and Tzidon. There he found a house to stay in and wanted to remain unrecognized, but keeping hidden proved impossible. ²⁵ Instead, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit in her came to him and fell down at his feet. ²⁶ The woman was a Greek, by birth a Syro-phoenician, and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter. ²⁷ He said, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s food and toss it to their pet dogs.” ²⁸ She answered him, “That is true, sir; but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s leftovers.” ²⁹ Then he said to her, “For such an answer you may go on home; the demon has left your daughter.” ³⁰ She went back home and found the child lying on the couch, the demon gone.

³¹ Then he left the district of Tzor and went through Tzidon to Lake Kinneret and on to the region of the Ten Towns. ³² They brought him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment and asked Yeshua to lay his hand on him. ³³ Taking him off alone, away from the crowd, Yeshua put his fingers into the man’s ears, spat, and touched his tongue; ³⁴ then, looking up to heaven, he gave a deep groan and said to him, “Hippatach!” (that is, “Be opened!”). ³⁵ His ears were opened, his tongue was freed, and he began speaking clearly. ³⁶ Yeshua ordered the people to tell no one; but the more he insisted, the more zealously they spread the news. ³⁷ People were overcome with amazement. “Everything he does, he does well!” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak!”