Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁸ Dearly beloveds, be not ignorant of this one thing: that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. ⁹ The Lord is not slack to fulfil his promise, as some count slackness, but is patient toward us, and would have no one lost, but would receive all to repentance. ¹⁰ Nevertheless, the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which day the heavens shall perish with terrible noise, and the elements shall melt with heat, and the earth with the works that are in it shall burn.

¹¹ If all these things will perish, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy living and godliness, ¹² looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, in which the heavens shall perish with fire and the elements shall be consumed with heat? ¹³ Nevertheless, we look for a new heaven and a new earth according to his promise, wherein righteousness dwells.

¹⁴ Therefore, dearly beloveds, seeing that you look for such things, be diligent to be found by him in peace, without spot and undefiled. ¹⁵ And count the longsuffering of the Lord to be salvation, even as our dearly beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you –

The office of John the Baptist. The baptism of Christ, his fasting, his preaching, and the calling of Peter, Andrew, James, and John. Christ heals the man with the unclean spirit, helps Peter’s mother-in-law, and cleanses the leper.

1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, ² as it is written in the prophets: Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who shall prepare your way before you. ³ The voice of a crier in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make his paths straight!

⁴ John baptized in the wilderness, and preached the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. ⁵ And all the countryside of Judea and the people of Jerusalem went out to him, and were all baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

⁶ John was clothed with camel’s hair, and with a girdle of skin about his loins. And he ate locusts and wild honey, ⁷ and preached, saying, One mightier than I comes after me, whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. ⁸ I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.