Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁸ During the cool part of the day, the Lord God was walking in the garden. The man and the woman heard him, and they hid among the trees in the garden. ⁹ The Lord God called to the man and said, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ The man said, “I heard you walking in the garden, and I was afraid. I was naked, so I hid.”

¹¹ God said to the man, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat fruit from that special tree? I told you not to eat from that tree!”

¹² The man said, “The woman you put here with me gave me fruit from that tree. So I ate it.”

¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What have you done?”

She said, “The snake tricked me, so I ate the fruit.”

¹⁴ So the Lord God said to the snake,

A song for going up to the Temple.

¹³ The Scriptures say, “I believed, so I spoke.”^[a] Our faith is like that too. We believe, and so we speak. ¹⁴ God raised the Lord Jesus from death, and we know that he will also raise us with Jesus. God will bring us together with you, and we will stand before him. ¹⁵ All these things are for you. And so the grace of God is being given to more and more people. This will bring more and more thanks to God for his glory.

Living by Faith

¹⁶ That is why we never give up. Our physical body is becoming older and weaker, but our spirit inside us is made new every day. ¹⁷ We have small troubles for a while now, but these troubles are helping us gain an eternal glory. That eternal glory is much greater than our troubles. ¹⁸ So we think about what we cannot see, not what we see. What we see lasts only a short time, and what we cannot see will last forever.

5 We know that our body—the tent we live in here on earth—will be destroyed. But when that happens, God will have a home for us to live in. It will not be the kind of home people build here. It will be a home in heaven that will continue forever.

Jesus’ Power Is From God^(A)

²⁰ Then Jesus went home, but again a large crowd gathered there. There were so many people that he and his followers could not eat. ²¹ His family heard about all these things. They went to get him because people said he was crazy.

²² And the teachers of the law from Jerusalem said, “Satan^[a] is living inside him! He uses power from the ruler of demons to force demons out of people.”

²³ So Jesus called them together and talked to them using some stories. He said, “Satan will not force his own demons out of people. ²⁴ A kingdom that fights against itself will not survive. ²⁵ And a family that is divided will not survive. ²⁶ If Satan is against himself and is fighting against his own people, he will not survive. That would be the end of Satan.

²⁷ “Whoever wants to enter a strong man’s house and steal his things must first tie him up. Then they can steal the things from his house.

²⁸ “I want you to know that people can be forgiven for all the sinful things they do. They can even be forgiven for the bad things they say against God. ²⁹ But anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. They will always be guilty of that sin.”

³⁰ Jesus said this because the teachers of the law had accused him of having an evil spirit inside him.

Jesus’ Followers Are His True Family^(B)

³¹ Then Jesus’ mother and brothers came. They stood outside and sent someone in to tell him to come out. ³² Many people were sitting around Jesus. They said to him, “Your mother, your brothers, and your sisters^[b] are waiting for you outside.”

³³ Jesus asked, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” ³⁴ Then he looked at the people sitting around him and said, “These people are my mother and my brothers! ³⁵ My true brother and sister and mother are those who do what God wants.”