The Command to Sacrifice Isaac

22 After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ² He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.”^{(A) 3} So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him. ⁴ On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. ⁵ Then Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” ⁶ Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. And the two of them walked on together.^{(B) 7} Isaac said to his father Abraham, “Father!” And he said, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “The fire and the wood are here, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?”^{(C) 8} Abraham said, “God himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them walked on together.

⁹ When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.^{(D) 10} Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill^[a] his son. ¹¹ But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” ¹² He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”^{(E) 13} And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴ So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide,”^[b] as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”^[c]

¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies, so that you obey their desires.^{(A) 13} No longer present your members to sin as instruments^[a] of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments^[b] of righteousness.^{(B) 14} For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.^(C)

Slaves of Righteousness

¹⁵ What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ Do you not know that, if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?^{(D) 17} But thanks be to God that you who were slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted^{(E) 18} and that you, having been set free from sin, have become enslaved to righteousness.^{(F) 19} I am speaking in human terms because of your limitations.^[c] For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, leading to even more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification.^(G)

²⁰ When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.^{(H) 21} So what fruit did you then gain from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death.^{(I) 22} But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the fruit you have leads to sanctification, and the end is eternal life.^{(J) 23} For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.^(K)

Rewards

⁴⁰ “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.^{(A) 41} Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous, ⁴² and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”^(B)