Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

The Brass Snake

⁴ Then they traveled from Mount Hor by the way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people wanted to give up because of the long way. ⁵ They spoke against God and Moses, saying, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the desert? For there is no food and no water. And we hate this bad food.” ⁶ Then the Lord sent snakes with a bite of poison among the people. They bit the people, so that many people of Israel died. ⁷ So the people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned, because we have spoken against the Lord and you. Pray to the Lord, that He will take away the snakes from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. ⁸ The Lord said to Moses, “Make a special snake and put it up on a long piece of wood. Everyone who is bitten will live when he looks at it.” ⁹ So Moses made a brass snake and put it up on the long piece of wood. If a snake bit any man, he would live when he looked at the brass snake.

God Helps Men in Trouble

107 Give thanks to the Lord for He is good! His loving-kindness lasts forever! ² Let the people who have been saved say so. He has bought them and set them free from the hand of those who hated them. ³ He gathered them from the lands, from east and west, from north and south.

¹⁷ Some were fools because of their wrong-doing. They had troubles because of their sins. ¹⁸ They hated all kinds of food. And they came near the gates of death. ¹⁹ Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble. And He saved them from their suffering. ²⁰ He sent His Word and healed them. And He saved them from the grave. ²¹ Let them give thanks to the Lord for His loving-kindness and His great works to the children of men! ²² Let them give Him gifts of thanks and tell of His works with songs of joy.

God Saved Us from Sin

2 At one time you were dead because of your sins. ² You followed the sinful ways of the world and obeyed the leader of the power of darkness. He is the devil who is now working in the people who do not obey God. ³ At one time all of us lived to please our old selves. We gave in to what our bodies and minds wanted. We were sinful from birth like all other people and would suffer from the anger of God.

⁴ But God had so much loving-kindness. He loved us with such a great love. ⁵ Even when we were dead because of our sins, He made us alive by what Christ did for us. You have been saved from the punishment of sin by His loving-favor. ⁶ God raised us up from death when He raised up Christ Jesus. He has given us a place with Christ in the heavens. ⁷ He did this to show us through all the time to come the great riches of His loving-favor. He has shown us His kindness through Christ Jesus.

⁸ For by His loving-favor you have been saved from the punishment of sin through faith. It is not by anything you have done. It is a gift of God. ⁹ It is not given to you because you worked for it. If you could work for it, you would be proud. ¹⁰ We are His work. He has made us to belong to Christ Jesus so we can work for Him. He planned that we should do this.

¹⁴ As Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. ¹⁵ Then whoever puts his trust in Him will have life that lasts forever. ¹⁶ For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. Whoever puts his trust in God’s Son will not be lost but will have life that lasts forever. ¹⁷ For God did not send His Son into the world to say it is guilty. He sent His Son so the world might be saved from the punishment of sin by Him. ¹⁸ Whoever puts his trust in His Son is not guilty. Whoever does not put his trust in Him is guilty already. It is because he does not put his trust in the name of the only Son of God.

¹⁹ “The Light has come into the world. And the Light is the test by which men are guilty or not. People love darkness more than the Light because the things they do are sinful. ²⁰ Everyone who sins hates the Light. He stays away from the Light because his sin would be found out. ²¹ The man who does what is right comes to the Light. What he does will be seen because he has done what God wanted him to do.”