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Psalm 50

1  The Lord, the most mighty God, has spoken ♦︎
   and called the world from the rising of the sun to its setting.
2  Out of Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth; ♦︎
   our God comes and will not keep silence.
3  Consuming fire goes out before him ♦︎
   and a mighty tempest stirs about him.
4  He calls the heaven above, ♦︎
   and the earth, that he may judge his people:
5  ‘Gather to me my faithful, ♦︎
   who have sealed my covenant with sacrifice.’
6  Let the heavens declare his righteousness, ♦︎
   for God himself is judge.
7  Hear, O my people, and I will speak: ♦︎
   ‘I will testify against you, O Israel;
      for I am God, your God.
8  ‘I will not reprove you for your sacrifices, ♦︎
   for your burnt offerings are always before me.
9  ‘I will take no bull out of your house, ♦︎
   nor he-goat out of your folds,
10  ‘For all the beasts of the forest are mine, ♦︎
   the cattle upon a thousand hills.
11  ‘I know every bird of the mountains ♦︎
   and the insect of the field is mine.
12  ‘If I were hungry, I would not tell you, ♦︎
   for the whole world is mine and all that fills it.
13  ‘Do you think I eat the flesh of bulls, ♦︎
   or drink the blood of goats?
14  ‘Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving ♦︎
   and fulfil your vows to God Most High.
15  ‘Call upon me in the day of trouble; ♦︎
   I will deliver you and you shall honour me.’
16  But to the wicked, says God: ♦︎
   ‘Why do you recite my statutes
      and take my covenant upon your lips,
17  ‘Since you refuse to be disciplined ♦︎
   and have cast my words behind you?
18  ‘When you saw a thief, you made friends with him ♦︎
   and you threw in your lot with adulterers.
19  ‘You have loosed your lips for evil ♦︎
   and harnessed your tongue to deceit.
20  ‘You sit and speak evil of your brother; ♦︎
   you slander your own mother’s son.
21  ‘These things have you done, and should I keep silence? ♦︎
   Did you think that I am even such a one as yourself?
22  ‘But no, I must reprove you, ♦︎
   and set before your eyes the things that you have done.
23  ‘You that forget God, consider this well, ♦︎
   lest I tear you apart and there is none to deliver you.
24  ‘Whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honours me ♦︎
   and to those who keep my way
      will I show the salvation of God.’

Blessings in Store for God’s People

51Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness,
   you that seek the Lord.
Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
   and to the quarry from which you were dug.
² Look to Abraham your father
   and to Sarah who bore you;
for he was but one when I called him,
   but I blessed him and made him many.
³ For the Lord will comfort Zion;
   he will comfort all her waste places,
and will make her wilderness like Eden,
   her desert like the garden of the Lord;
joy and gladness will be found in her,
   thanksgiving and the voice of song.

⁴ Listen to me, my people,
   and give heed to me, my nation;
for a teaching will go out from me,
   and my justice for a light to the peoples.
⁵ I will bring near my deliverance swiftly,
   my salvation has gone out
   and my arms will rule the peoples;
the coastlands wait for me,
   and for my arm they hope.
⁶ Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
   and look at the earth beneath;
for the heavens will vanish like smoke,
   the earth will wear out like a garment,
   and those who live on it will die like gnats;^*
but my salvation will be for ever,
   and my deliverance will never be ended.

⁷ Listen to me, you who know righteousness,
   you people who have my teaching in your hearts;
do not fear the reproach of others,
   and do not be dismayed when they revile you.
⁸ For the moth will eat them up like a garment,
   and the worm will eat them like wool;
but my deliverance will be for ever,
   and my salvation to all generations.

The Tradition of the Elders

7Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, ²they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. ³(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands,^* thus observing the tradition of the elders; ⁴and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it;^* and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.^*) ⁵So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live^* according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ ⁶He said to them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,
“This people honours me with their lips,
   but their hearts are far from me;
⁷ in vain do they worship me,
   teaching human precepts as doctrines.”
⁸You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’

9 Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! ¹⁰For Moses said, “Honour your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” ¹¹But you say that if anyone tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is Corban” (that is, an offering to God^*)— ¹²then you no longer permit doing anything for a father or mother, ¹³thus making void the word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many things like this.’

14 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: ¹⁵there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’^*

17 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about the parable. ¹⁸He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, ¹⁹since it enters, not the heart but the stomach, and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.) ²⁰And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. ²¹For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, ²²adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. ²³All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’