15th Sunday of Matthew

Working together, we entreat also that you do not receive the grace of God in vain.

²For he says, “At an acceptable time I listened to you. In a day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is the acceptable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation. ³We give no occasion of stumbling in anything, that our service may not be blamed, ⁴but in everything commending ourselves as servants of God: in great endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, ⁵in beatings, in imprisonments, in riots, in labors, in watchings, in fastings, ⁶in pureness, in knowledge, in perseverance, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in sincere love, ⁷in the word of truth, in the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, ⁸by glory and dishonor, by evil report and good report, as deceivers and yet true, ⁹as unknown and yet well known, as dying and behold—we live, as punished and not killed, ¹⁰as sorrowful yet always rejoicing, as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing and yet possessing all things.

One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him. ³⁶“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?”

³⁷Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

⁴¹Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question,

⁴²saying, “What do you think of the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “Of David.”

⁴³He said to them, “How then does David in the Spirit call him Lord, saying, ⁴⁴‘The Lord said to my Lord, sit on my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’?

⁴⁵“If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”

⁴⁶No one was able to answer him a word, neither did any man dare ask him any more questions from that day forward.