Reference links:
Old Testament
Obey the covenant, etc., etc. If the Israelites go astray, God will punish them, but if they change and obey him again, he will bless them again. The last paragraph of today’s reading summarizes the rest nicely,
Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live! You can make this choice by loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and committing yourself firmly to him. This is the key to your life. And if you love and obey the Lord, you will live long in the land the Lord swore to give your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
New Testament
In Matthew and Mark, Jesus spent a lot of time criticizing the Pharisees. However, those events always seemed to be in public or in the homes of Jesus’ followers. In Luke’s version of some of this criticism, Jesus criticizes the Pharisees after one invites him to dinner. That seems rather rude.
As Jesus was speaking, one of the Pharisees invited him home for a meal. So he went in and took his place at the table. His host was amazed to see that he sat down to eat without first performing the hand-washing ceremony required by Jewish custom. Then the Lord said to him, “You Pharisees are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and wickedness! Fools! Didn’t God make the inside as well as the outside? So clean the inside by giving gifts to the poor, and you will be clean all over.
He keeps going on in this vein until he finally leaves,
As Jesus was leaving, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees became hostile and tried to provoke him with many questions. They wanted to trap him into saying something they could use against him.
I would be annoyed if someone I invited over for dinner started calling me foolish and wicked too.
Psalms and Proverbs
Today’s psalm is something different… well, for a psalm. We get part one of a poetic retelling of some of the events that occurred while the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness.