Matthew 12:37-40
The Message
34-37 “You have minds like a snake pit! How do you suppose what you say is worth anything when you are so foul-minded? It’s your heart, not the dictionary, that gives meaning to your words. A good person produces good deeds and words season after season. An evil person is a blight on the orchard. Let me tell you something: Every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation.”
Jonah-Evidence
38 Later a few religion scholars and Pharisees cornered him. “Teacher, we want to see your credentials. Give us some hard evidence that God is in this. How about a miracle?”
39-40 Jesus said, “You’re looking for proof, but you’re looking for the wrong kind. All you want is something to titillate your curiosity, satisfy your lust for miracles. The only proof you’re going to get is what looks like the absence of proof: Jonah-evidence. Like Jonah, three days and nights in the fish’s belly, the Son of Man will be gone three days and nights in a deep grave.
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Matthew 12:37-39
New International Version
37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”(A)
The Sign of Jonah(B)(C)
38 Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign(D) from you.”(E)
39 He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.(F)
Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
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