Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

No favorites!

2 My brothers and sisters, as you practice the faith of our Lord Jesus, the anointed King of glory, you must do so without favoritism. ² What I mean is this: if someone comes into your assembly wearing gold rings, all dressed up, and a poor person comes in wearing shabby clothes, ³ you cast your eyes over the person wearing fine clothes and say, “Please! Have a seat up here!” but then you turn to the poor person and say, “Stand there!” or, “Get down there by my footstool!” ⁴ When you do this, are you not discriminating among yourselves? Are you not turning into judges with evil thoughts? ⁵ Listen, my dear brothers and sisters. Isn’t it the case that God has chosen the poor (as the world sees it) to be rich in faith, and to inherit the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him? ⁶ But you have dishonored the poor man. After all, who are the rich? The rich are the ones who lord it over you and drag you into court, aren’t they? ⁷ The rich are the ones who blaspheme the wonderful name which has been pronounced over you, aren’t they?

⁸ Supposing, however, you keep the royal law, as it is written, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”; if you do this, you will do well. ⁹ But if you show favoritism, you are committing sin, and you will be convicted by the law as a lawbreaker. ¹⁰ Anyone who keeps the whole law, you see, but fails in one point, has become guilty of all of it.

¹¹ For the one who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” So if you do not commit adultery, but do murder, you have become a lawbreaker. ¹² Speak and act in such a way as people who are going to be judged by the law of freedom. ¹³ Judgment is without mercy, you see, for those who have shown no mercy. But mercy triumphs over judgment.

Faith and works

¹⁴ What use is it, my dear family, if someone says they have faith when they don’t have works? Can faith save such a person? ¹⁵ Supposing a brother or sister is without clothing, and is short even of daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; be warm, be full!”—but doesn’t give them what their bodies need—what use is that? ¹⁷ In the same way, faith, all by itself and without works, is dead.

The Syrophoenician woman

²⁴ Jesus got up, left that place, and went to the region of Tyre. When he went into a house, he didn’t want anyone to know, but it wasn’t possible for him to remain hidden. ²⁵ On the contrary: news of him at once reached a woman who had a young daughter with an unclean spirit. She came and threw herself down at his feet. ²⁶ She was Greek, a Syrophoenician by race; and she asked him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

²⁷ “First let the children eat what they want,” Jesus replied. “It’s not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

²⁸ “Well, Master,” she said, “even the dogs under the table eat the crumbs that the children drop.”

²⁹ “Well said!” replied Jesus. “Off you go; the demon has left your daughter.”

³⁰ So she went home, and found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

A deaf and mute man is healed

³¹ Jesus went away from the region of Tyre, through Sidon, round towards the sea of Galilee, and into the region of the Ten Towns. ³² They brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and asked that he would lay his hand on him.

³³ Jesus took the man off in private, away from the crowd. He put his fingers into his ears, spat, and touched his tongue. ³⁴ Then he looked up to heaven, groaned, and said to him, “Ephphatha” (that is, “Be opened”). ³⁵ Immediately the man’s ears were opened, and his tongue was untied, and he spoke clearly.

³⁶ Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone. But the more he ordered them, the more they spread the news. ³⁷ They were totally astonished.

“Everything he does is marvelous!” they said. “He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak!”