Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹⁰ As the rain and snow come down from heaven and stay upon the ground to water the earth, and cause the grain to grow and to produce seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry, ¹¹ so also is my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It shall accomplish all I want it to and prosper everywhere I send it. ¹² You will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills, the trees of the field—all the world around you—will rejoice. ¹³ Where once were thorns, fir trees will grow; where briars grew, the myrtle trees will sprout up. This miracle will make the Lord’s name very great and be an everlasting sign of God’s power and love.^[a]

65 ^1-2 O God in Zion, we wait before you in silent praise, and thus fulfill our vow. And because you answer prayer, all mankind will come to you with their requests. ³ Though sins fill our hearts, you forgive them all. ⁴ How greatly to be envied are those you have chosen to come and live with you within the holy tabernacle courts! What joys await us among all the good things there. ⁵ With dread deeds and awesome power you will defend us from our enemies,^[a] O God who saves us. You are the only hope of all mankind throughout the world and far away upon the sea.

⁶ He formed the mountains by his mighty strength. ⁷ He quiets the raging oceans and all the world’s clamor. ⁸ In the farthest corners of the earth the glorious acts of God shall startle everyone. The dawn and sunset shout for joy!

⁹ He waters the earth to make it fertile. The rivers of God will not run dry! He prepares the earth for his people and sends them rich harvests of grain. ¹⁰ He waters the furrows with abundant rain. Showers soften the earth, melting the clods and causing seeds to sprout across the land. ^11-12 Then he crowns it all with green, lush pastures in the wilderness; hillsides blossom with joy. ¹³ The pastures are filled with flocks of sheep, and the valleys are carpeted with grain. All the world shouts with joy and sings.

8 So there is now no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus. ² For the power of the life-giving Spirit—and this power is mine through Christ Jesus—has freed me from the vicious circle of sin and death. ³ We aren’t saved from sin’s grasp by knowing the commandments of God because we can’t and don’t keep them, but God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours—except that ours are sinful—and destroyed sin’s control over us by giving himself as a sacrifice for our sins. ⁴ So now we can obey God’s laws if we follow after the Holy Spirit and no longer obey the old evil nature within us.

⁵ Those who let themselves be controlled by their lower natures live only to please themselves, but those who follow after the Holy Spirit find themselves doing those things that please God. ⁶ Following after the Holy Spirit leads to life and peace, but following after the old nature leads to death ⁷ because the old sinful nature within us is against God. It never did obey God’s laws and it never will. ⁸ That’s why those who are still under the control of their old sinful selves, bent on following their old evil desires, can never please God.

⁹ But you are not like that. You are controlled by your new nature if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that if anyone doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ living in him, he is not a Christian at all.) ¹⁰ Yet, even though Christ lives within you, your body will die because of sin; but your spirit will live, for Christ has pardoned it.^{[a] 11} And if the Spirit of God, who raised up Jesus from the dead, lives in you, he will make your dying bodies live again after you die, by means of this same Holy Spirit living within you.

13 Later that same day, Jesus left the house and went down to the shore, ^2-3 where an immense crowd soon gathered. He got into a boat and taught from it while the people listened on the beach. He used many illustrations such as this one in his sermon:

“A farmer was sowing grain in his fields. ⁴ As he scattered the seed across the ground, some fell beside a path, and the birds came and ate it. ⁵ And some fell on rocky soil where there was little depth of earth; the plants sprang up quickly enough in the shallow soil, ⁶ but the hot sun soon scorched them and they withered and died, for they had so little root. ⁷ Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns choked out the tender blades. ⁸ But some fell on good soil and produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as he had planted. ⁹ If you have ears, listen!”

¹⁸ “Now here is the explanation of the story I told about the farmer planting grain: ¹⁹ The hard path where some of the seeds fell represents the heart of a person who hears the Good News about the Kingdom and doesn’t understand it; then Satan^[a] comes and snatches away the seeds from his heart. ²⁰ The shallow, rocky soil represents the heart of a man who hears the message and receives it with real joy, ²¹ but he doesn’t have much depth in his life, and the seeds don’t root very deeply, and after a while when trouble comes, or persecution begins because of his beliefs, his enthusiasm fades, and he drops out. ²² The ground covered with thistles represents a man who hears the message, but the cares of this life and his longing for money choke out God’s Word, and he does less and less for God. ²³ The good ground represents the heart of a man who listens to the message and understands it and goes out and brings thirty, sixty, or even a hundred others into the Kingdom.”^[b]