Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

True and false wisdom

¹³ Who is wise and discerning among you? Such a person should, by their upright behavior, display their works in the humility of wisdom. ¹⁴ But if you have bitter jealousy and contention in your hearts, don’t boast, and tell lies against the truth. ¹⁵ This isn’t the wisdom that comes from above. It is earthly, merely human, coming from the world of demons. ¹⁶ For where there is jealousy and contention, there you will get unruly behavior and every kind of evil practice. ¹⁷ But the wisdom that comes from above is first holy, then peaceful, gentle, compliant, filled with mercy and good fruits, unbiased, sincere. ¹⁸ And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Humility and faith

4 Where do wars come from? Why do people among you fight? It all comes from within, doesn’t it—from your desires for pleasure which make war in your members. ² You want something and you haven’t got it, so you murder someone. You long to possess something, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war. The reason you don’t have it is because you don’t ask for it! ³ And when you do ask, you don’t get it, because you ask wrongly, intending to spend it on your pleasures.

⁷ Submit to God, then; resist the devil and he will run away from you. ⁸ Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Make your hands clean, you sinners; and make your hearts pure, you double-minded lot.

True greatness

³⁰ They went away from there and were traveling through Galilee. Jesus didn’t want anyone to know, ³¹ because he was teaching his disciples.

“The ‘son of man,’ ” he was saying, “is to be given over into human hands. They will kill him; and, when he’s been killed, after three days he will rise again.”

³² They didn’t understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.

³³ They came to Capernaum. When they got into the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?”

³⁴ They said nothing, because on the road they had been arguing about which of them was the greatest.

³⁵ Jesus sat down and called the Twelve. “If you want to be first,” he said, “you must be last of all, and servant of all.” ³⁶ He took a small child, and stood it in the middle of them. Then he hugged the child, and said to them, ³⁷ “If anyone welcomes one child like this in my name, they welcome me. And if anyone welcomes me, it isn’t me they welcome, but the one who sent me.”