Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

116 I love the Lord because he hears my prayers and answers them. ² Because he bends down and listens, I will pray as long as I breathe!

³ Death stared me in the face—I was frightened and sad. ⁴ Then I cried, “Lord, save me!” ⁵ How kind he is! How good he is! So merciful, this God of ours! ⁶ The Lord protects the simple and the childlike; I was facing death, and then he saved me. ⁷ Now I can relax. For the Lord has done this wonderful miracle for me. ⁸ He has saved me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. ⁹ I shall live! Yes, in his presence—here on earth!

¹⁵ “We’ll defend you with our lives.” Then, since her house was on top of the city wall, she let them down by a rope from a window.

¹⁶ “Escape to the mountains,” she told them. “Hide there for three days until the men who are searching for you have returned; then go on your way.”

^17-18 But before they left, the men had said to her, “We cannot be responsible for what happens to you unless this rope is hanging from this window and unless all your relatives—your father, mother, brothers, and anyone else—are here inside the house. ¹⁹ If they go out into the street, we assume no responsibility whatsoever; but we swear that no one inside this house will be killed or injured. ²⁰ However, if you betray us, then this oath will no longer bind us in any way.”

²¹ “I accept your terms,” she replied. And she left the scarlet rope hanging from the window.

²² The spies went up into the mountains and stayed there three days, until the men who were chasing them had returned to the city after searching everywhere along the road without success. ²³ Then the two spies came down from the mountains and crossed the river and reported to Joshua all that had happened to them.

²⁴ “The Lord will certainly give us the entire land,” they said, “for all the people over there are scared to death of us.”

¹⁷ So you see, it isn’t enough just to have faith. You must also do good to prove that you have it. Faith that doesn’t show itself by good works is no faith at all—it is dead and useless.

¹⁸ But someone may well argue, “You say the way to God is by faith alone, plus nothing; well, I say that good works are important too, for without good works you can’t prove whether you have faith or not; but anyone can see that I have faith by the way I act.”

¹⁹ Are there still some among you who hold that “only believing” is enough? Believing in one God? Well, remember that the demons believe this too—so strongly that they tremble in terror! ²⁰ Fool! When will you ever learn that “believing” is useless without doing what God wants you to? Faith that does not result in good deeds is not real faith.

²¹ Don’t you remember that even our father Abraham was declared good because of what he did when he was willing to obey God, even if it meant offering his son Isaac to die on the altar? ²² You see, he was trusting God so much that he was willing to do whatever God told him to; his faith was made complete by what he did—by his actions, his good deeds. ²³ And so it happened just as the Scriptures say, that Abraham trusted God, and the Lord declared him good in God’s sight, and he was even called “the friend of God.” ²⁴ So you see, a man is saved by what he does, as well as by what he believes.

²⁵ Rahab, the prostitute, is another example of this. She was saved because of what she did when she hid those messengers and sent them safely away by a different road. ²⁶ Just as the body is dead when there is no spirit in it, so faith is dead if it is not the kind that results in good deeds.