Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁸ Then they heard the Lord God walking in the garden 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 and said, “Where are you?”

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

¹¹ God asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat fruit from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”

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

¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “How could you have done such a thing?”

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 the dead, 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 that is being given to more and more people will bring increasing 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 is much greater than the troubles. ¹⁸ 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. It will not be a house made by human hands; instead, it will be a home in heaven that will last forever.

Some People Say Jesus Has a Devil

²⁰ Then Jesus went home, but again a crowd gathered. There were so many people that Jesus and his followers could not eat. ²¹ When his family heard this, they went to get him because they thought he was out of his mind. ²² But 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 of people.”

²³ So Jesus called the people together and taught them with stories. He said, “Satan will not force himself out of people. ²⁴ A kingdom that is divided cannot continue, ²⁵ and a family that is divided cannot continue. ²⁶ And if Satan is against himself and fights against his own people, he cannot continue; that is the end of Satan. ²⁷ No one can enter a strong person’s house and steal his things unless he first ties up the strong person. Then he can steal things from the house. ²⁸ I tell you the truth, all sins that people do and all the things people say against God can be forgiven. ²⁹ But anyone who speaks 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 he had an evil spirit inside him.

Jesus’ True Family

³¹ Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to tell him to come out. ³² Many people were sitting around Jesus, and they said to him, “Your mother and brothers^[a] are waiting for you outside.”

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