Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁸ Then they heard the Lord God walking in the garden. This was during the cool part of the day. And the man and his wife hid from the Lord God among the trees in the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man. The Lord said, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ The man answered, “I heard you walking in the garden. I was afraid because 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 tree? I commanded you not to eat from that tree.”

¹² The man said, “You gave this woman to me. She gave me fruit from the tree. So I ate it.”

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

She answered, “The snake tricked me. So I ate the fruit.”

¹⁴ The Lord God said to the snake,

A Prayer for Mercy

A song for going up to worship.

¹³ It is written in the Scriptures, “I believed, so I spoke.”^[a] Our faith is like this, too. We believe, and so we speak. ¹⁴ God raised the Lord Jesus from death. And we know that God 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 So we do not 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 they are helping us gain an eternal glory. That glory is much greater than the troubles. ¹⁸ So we set our eyes not on what we see but on what we cannot see. What we see will last only a short time. But 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 house for us to live in. It will not be a house made by men. It will be a home in heaven that will last forever.

People Say Jesus Has a Devil

²⁰ Then Jesus went back home. But again a crowd gathered. There were so many people that Jesus and his followers could not eat. ²¹ His family heard about all these things. They went to get him because people were saying that Jesus was out of his mind.

²² And the teachers of the law from Jerusalem were saying, “Beelzebul is living inside him! He uses power from the ruler of demons to force demons out.”

²³ So Jesus called the people together and used stories to teach them. He said, “Satan will not force his own demons out of people. ²⁴ A kingdom that fights against itself cannot continue. ²⁵ And a family that is divided cannot continue. ²⁶ And if Satan is against himself and fights against his own people, then he cannot continue. And that is the end of Satan. ²⁷ If a person wants to enter a strong man’s house and steal his things, first he must tie up the strong man. Then the thief can steal the things from the strong man’s house. ²⁸ I tell you the truth. All sins that people do can be forgiven. And all the bad things people say against God can be forgiven. ²⁹ But any person who says bad things against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. He is guilty of a sin that continues forever.”

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

Jesus’ True Family

³¹ Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. 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 and brothers^[a] are waiting for you outside.”

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