Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Taw

¹¹ There was an old prophet living in Bethel, whose son came and told him all that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. When his sons repeated to their father the words the man of God had spoken to the king, ¹² the father asked them, “Which way did he go?” So his sons pointed out to him the road taken by the man of God who had come from Judah. ¹³ Then he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” When they had saddled it, he mounted ¹⁴ and followed the man of God, whom he found seated under a terebinth. When he asked him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” he answered, “Yes.” ¹⁵ Then he said, “Come home with me and have some bread.” ¹⁶ “I cannot return with you or go with you, and I cannot eat bread or drink water with you in this place,” he answered, ¹⁷ “for I was told by the word of the Lord: You shall not eat bread or drink water there, and do not go back the way you came.” ¹⁸ But he said to him, “I, too, am a prophet like you, and an angel told me by the word of the Lord: Bring him back with you to your house to eat bread and drink water.” But he was lying to him. ¹⁹ So he went back with him, and ate bread and drank water in his house. ²⁰ But while they were sitting at table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had brought him back, ²¹ and he cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah: “Thus says the Lord: Because you rebelled against the charge of the Lord and did not keep the command which the Lord, your God, gave you, ²² but returned and ate bread and drank water in the place where he told you, Do not eat bread or drink water, your corpse shall not be brought to the grave of your ancestors.” ²³ After he had eaten bread and drunk, they saddled for him the donkey that belonged to the prophet who had brought him back, ²⁴ and he set out. But a lion met him on the road, and killed him. His body lay sprawled on the road, and the donkey remained standing by it, and so did the lion.

²⁵ Some passersby saw the body lying in the road, with the lion standing beside it, and carried the news to the city where the old prophet lived.

IV. The Ideal Christian Life in the World

Chapter 3

Mystical Death and Resurrection.^{[a] 1} If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.^{(A) 2} Think of what is above, not of what is on earth. ³ For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.^{(B) 4} When Christ your life appears, then you too will appear with him in glory.

Renunciation of Vice.^{[b] 5} Put to death, then, the parts of you that are earthly:^(C) immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry.^{[c] 6} Because of these the wrath of God^[d] is coming [upon the disobedient].^{(D) 7} By these you too once conducted yourselves, when you lived in that way. ⁸ But now you must put them all away:^[e] anger, fury, malice, slander, and obscene language out of your mouths.^{(E) 9} Stop lying to one another, since you have taken off the old self with its practices^{(F) 10 [f]}and have put on the new self, which is being renewed, for knowledge, in the image of its creator.^{(G) 11} Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian,^[g] slave, free; but Christ is all and in all.^(H)