Genesis 37, Mark 7, Job 3, Romans 7

Genesis 37,

Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.
This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.
Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him.
When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.
Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more.
  
  He said to them, "Listen to this dream I had:
We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it."
His brothers said to him, "Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?" And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.
Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. "Listen," he said, "I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me."
When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, "What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?"
  
  His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.
Now his brothers had gone to graze their father's flocks near Shechem,
and Israel said to Joseph, "As you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I am going to send you to them." "Very well," he replied.
So he said to him, "Go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks, and bring word back to me." Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron. When Joseph arrived at Shechem,
a man found him wandering around in the fields and asked him, "What are you looking for?"
  
  He replied, "I'm looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?"
"They have moved on from here," the man answered. "I heard them say, 'Let's go to Dothan.' " So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan.
But they saw him in the distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.
"Here comes that dreamer!" they said to each other.
"Come now, let's kill him and throw him into one of these cisterns and say that a ferocious animal devoured him. Then we'll see what comes of his dreams."
  
  When Reuben heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. "Let's not take his life," he said.
"Don't shed any blood. Throw him into this cistern here in the desert, but don't lay a hand on him." Reuben said this to rescue him from them and take him back to his father.
So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe--the richly ornamented robe he was wearing-
and they took him and threw him into the cistern. Now the cistern was empty; there was no water in it.
As they sat down to eat their meal, they looked up and saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead. Their camels were loaded with spices, balm and myrrh, and they were on their way to take them down to Egypt.
  
  Judah said to his brothers, "What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover up his blood?
Come, let's sell him to the Ishmaelites and not lay our hands on him; after all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood." His brothers agreed.
So when the Midianite merchants came by, his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt.
When Reuben returned to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not there, he tore his clothes.
He went back to his brothers and said, "The boy isn't there! Where can I turn now?"
  
  Then they got Joseph's robe, slaughtered a goat and dipped the robe in the blood.
They took the ornamented robe back to their father and said, "We found this. Examine it to see whether it is your son's robe."
He recognized it and said, "It is my son's robe! Some ferocious animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces."
Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days.
All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. "No," he said, "in mourning will I go down to the grave to my son." So his father wept for him.
  
  Meanwhile, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard. 

Mark 7,

The Pharisees and some of the teachers of the law who had come from Jerusalem gathered around Jesus and
saw some of his disciples eating food with hands that were "unclean," that is, unwashed.
(The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders.
When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles.)
So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean' hands?"
  
  He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: " 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'
You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."
And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!
For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'
  
  But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God),
then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother.
Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."
Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.
Nothing outside a man can make him 'unclean' by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him 'unclean.' "
  
 
After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable.
"Are you so dull?" he asked. "Don't you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him 'unclean'?
For it doesn't go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body." (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods "clean.")
He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean.'
  
  For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,
greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.
All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean.' "
Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret.
In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet.
  
  The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
"First let the children eat all they want," he told her, "for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."
"Yes, Lord," she replied, "but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."
Then he told her, "For such a reply, you may go; the demon has left your daughter."
She went home and found her child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
  
  Then Jesus left the vicinity of Tyre and went through Sidon, down to the Sea of Galilee and into the region of the Decapolis.
There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged him to place his hand on the man.
After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man's ears. Then he spit and touched the man's tongue.
He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, "Ephphatha!" (which means, "Be opened!" ).
At this, the man's ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.
  
  Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone. But the more he did so, the more they kept talking about it.
People were overwhelmed with amazement. "He has done everything well," they said. "He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak."

Job 3,

After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth.
He said:
"May the day of my birth perish, and the night it was said, 'A boy is born!'
That day--may it turn to darkness; may God above not care about it; may no light shine upon it.
May darkness and deep shadow claim it once more; may a cloud settle over it; may blackness overwhelm its light.
  
  That night--may thick darkness seize it; may it not be included among the days of the year nor be entered in any of the months.
May that night be barren; may no shout of joy be heard in it.
May those who curse days curse that day, those who are ready to rouse Leviathan.
May its morning stars become dark; may it wait for daylight in vain and not see the first rays of dawn,
for it did not shut the doors of the womb on me to hide trouble from my eyes.
  
  "Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb?
Why were there knees to receive me and breasts that I might be nursed?
For now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at rest
with kings and counselors of the earth, who built for themselves places now lying in ruins,
with rulers who had gold, who filled their houses with silver.
  
  Or why was I not hidden in the ground like a stillborn child, like an infant who never saw the light of day?
There the wicked cease from turmoil, and there the weary are at rest.
Captives also enjoy their ease; they no longer hear the slave driver's shout.
The small and the great are there, and the slave is freed from his master.
"Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul,
  
  to those who long for death that does not come, who search for it more than for hidden treasure,
who are filled with gladness and rejoice when they reach the grave?
Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?
For sighing comes to me instead of food; my groans pour out like water.
What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.
  
  I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil." 

Romans 7

Do you not know, brothers--for I am speaking to men who know the law--that the law has authority over a man only as long as he lives?
For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage.
So then, if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress, even though she marries another man.
So, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God.
For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.
  
  But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.
What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet."
But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead.
Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.
I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.
  
  For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.
So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
  
  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.
As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.
I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.
For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing.
Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
  
  So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.
For in my inner being I delight in God's law;
but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.