Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)
A Song of Praise
92 It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and sing praises to Your name, O Most High. 2 It is good to tell of Your loving-kindness in the morning, and of how faithful You are at night, 3 with harps, and with music of praise. 4 For You have made me glad by what You have done, O Lord. I will sing for joy at the works of Your hands.
12 The man who is right and good will grow like the palm tree. He will grow like a tall tree in Lebanon. 13 Planted in the house of the Lord, they will grow well in the home of our God. 14 They will still give fruit when they are old. They will be full of life and strength. 15 And they will show that the Lord is faithful. He is my rock. There is nothing in Him that is not right and good.
14 Then the Lord God said to the snake, “Because you have done this, you will be hated and will suffer more than all cattle, and more than every animal of the field. You will go on your stomach and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15 And I will make you and the woman hate each other, and your seed and her seed will hate each other. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel.”
16 To the woman He said, “I will make your pain much worse in giving birth. You will give birth to children in pain. Yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
17 Then He said to Adam, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I told you, “Do not eat from it,” the ground is cursed because of you. By hard work you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will grow thorns and thistles for you. You will eat the plants of the field. 19 You will eat bread by the sweat of your face because of hard work, until you return to the ground, because you were taken from the ground. You are dust, and you will return to dust.”
20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. 21 And the Lord God made clothes of skins for Adam and his wife, and dressed them.
22 Then the Lord God said, “See, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and bad. Now then, he might put out his hand to take from the tree of life also, and eat and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out. And He placed cherubim east of the garden of Eden with a sword of fire that turned every way. They kept watch over the path to the tree of life.
Jesus, the Way to Heaven
5 God did not make angels to be the leaders of that world to come which we have been speaking about. 6 Instead, the Holy Writings say, “What is man that You think of him and the son of man that You should remember him?” (A) 7 “You made him so he took a place that was not as important as the angels for a little while. You gave him the crown of honor and shining-greatness. *You made him the head over everything You have made. 8 You have put everything under his feet.” (B) There is nothing that does not obey him, but we do not see all things obey him yet. 9 But we do see Jesus. For a little while He took a place that was not as important as the angels. But God had loving-favor for everyone. He had Jesus suffer death on a cross for all of us. Then, because of Christ’s death on a cross, God gave Him the crown of honor and shining-greatness.
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