Binding of Isaac

22 After these events, God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!”

Abraham answered, “I’m here.”

² God said, “Take your son, your only son whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him up as an entirely burned offering there on one of the mountains that I will show you.” ³ Abraham got up early in the morning, harnessed his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, together with his son Isaac. He split the wood for the entirely burned offering, set out, and went to the place God had described to him.

⁴ On the third day, Abraham looked up and saw the place at a distance. ⁵ Abraham said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will walk up there, worship, and then come back to you.”

⁶ Abraham took the wood for the entirely burned offering and laid it on his son Isaac. He took the fire and the knife in his hand, and the two of them walked on together. ⁷ Isaac said to his father Abraham, “My father?”

Abraham said, “I’m here, my son.”

Isaac said, “Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the entirely burned offering?”

⁸ Abraham said, “The lamb for the entirely burned offering? God will see to it,^[a] my son.” The two of them walked on together.

⁹ They arrived at the place God had described to him. Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He tied up his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. ¹⁰ Then Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to kill his son as a sacrifice. ¹¹ But the Lord’s messenger called out to Abraham from heaven, “Abraham? Abraham?”

Abraham said, “I’m here.”

¹² The messenger said, “Don’t stretch out your hand against the young man, and don’t do anything to him. I now know that you revere God and didn’t hold back your son, your only son, from me.” ¹³ Abraham looked up and saw a single ram^[b] caught by its horns in the dense underbrush. Abraham went over, took the ram, and offered it as an entirely burned offering instead of his son. ¹⁴ Abraham named that place “the Lord sees.”^[c] That is the reason people today say, “On this mountain the Lord is seen.”^[d]

Psalm 13

For the music leader. A song of David.

¹² So then, don’t let sin rule your body, so that you do what it wants. ¹³ Don’t offer parts of your body to sin, to be used as weapons to do wrong. Instead, present yourselves to God as people who have been brought back to life from the dead, and offer all the parts of your body to God to be used as weapons to do right. ¹⁴ Sin will have no power over you, because you aren’t under Law but under grace.

Freedom from sin

¹⁵ So what? Should we sin because we aren’t under Law but under grace? Absolutely not! ¹⁶ Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, that you are slaves of the one whom you obey? That’s true whether you serve as slaves of sin, which leads to death, or as slaves of the kind of obedience that leads to righteousness. ¹⁷ But thank God that although you used to be slaves of sin, you gave wholehearted obedience to the teaching that was handed down to you, which provides a pattern. ¹⁸ Now that you have been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹ (I’m speaking with ordinary metaphors because of your limitations.) Once, you offered the parts of your body to be used as slaves to impurity and to lawless behavior that leads to still more lawless behavior. Now, you should present the parts of your body as slaves to righteousness, which makes your lives holy. ²⁰ When you were slaves of sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. ²¹ What consequences did you get from doing things that you are now ashamed of? The outcome of those things is death. ²² But now that you have been set free from sin and become slaves to God, you have the consequence of a holy life, and the outcome is eternal life. ²³ The wages that sin pays are death, but God’s gift is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rewards

⁴⁰ “Those who receive you are also receiving me, and those who receive me are receiving the one who sent me. ⁴¹ Those who receive a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. Those who receive a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. ⁴² I assure you that everybody who gives even a cup of cold water to these little ones because they are my disciples will certainly be rewarded.”