⁸ Then this message from Adonai came to Z’kharyah: ⁹ “In the past Adonai-Tzva’ot said, ‘Administer true justice. Let everyone show mercy and compassion to his brother. ¹⁰ Don’t oppress widows, orphans, foreigners or poor people. Don’t plot evil against each other.’ ¹¹ But they wouldn’t listen, they stubbornly turned their shoulder away and stopped up their ears, so that they wouldn’t have to hear it. ¹² Yes, they made their hearts as hard as a diamond, so that they wouldn’t hear the Torah and the messages that Adonai-Tzva’ot had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. This is why great anger came from Adonai-Tzva’ot;

²⁵ Huge crowds followed him from the Galil, the Ten Towns, Yerushalayim, Y’hudah, and ‘Ever-HaYarden.

5 Seeing the crowds, Yeshua walked up the hill. After he sat down, his talmidim came to him, ² and he began to speak. This is what he taught them:

¹¹ “How blessed you are when people insult you and persecute you and tell all kinds of vicious lies about you because you follow me! ¹² Rejoice, be glad, because your reward in heaven is great — they persecuted the prophets before you in the same way.

¹³ “You are salt for the Land. But if salt becomes tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything except being thrown out for people to trample on.

²⁵ An expert in Torah stood up to try and trap him by asking, “Rabbi, what should I do to obtain eternal life?” ²⁶ But Yeshua said to him, “What is written in the Torah? How do you read it?” ²⁷ He answered, “You are to love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your understanding; and your neighbor as yourself.”^{[a] 28} “That’s the right answer,” Yeshua said. “Do this, and you will have life.”

²⁹ But he, wanting to justify himself, said to Yeshua, “And who is my ‘neighbor’?”