Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

God’s Shining-Greatness

8 O Lord, our Lord, how great is Your name in all the earth. You have set Your shining-greatness above the heavens. ² Out of the mouth of children and babies, You have built up strength because of those who hate You, and to quiet those who fight against You.

³ When I look up and think about Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in their place, ⁴ what is man, that You think of him, the son of man that You care for him? ⁵ You made him a little less than the angels and gave him a crown of greatness and honor. ⁶ You made him to rule over the works of Your hands. You put all things under his feet: ⁷ All sheep and cattle, all the wild animals, ⁸ the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, and all that pass through the sea. ⁹ O Lord, our Lord, how great is Your name in all the earth!

The Agreement at Beersheba

²² At that time, Abimelech with Phicol, the head of his army, said to Abraham, “God is with you in all that you do. ²³ So promise me here by God that you will not work against me, or my son, or any children after me. I have shown you kindness. So return kindness to me and to the land where you have come.” ²⁴ Abraham said, “I promise.” ²⁵ But Abraham spoke to Abimelech about a well of water that the servants of Abimelech had taken. ²⁶ Abimelech said, “I do not know who did this. You never told me. And I did not hear about it until today.” ²⁷ So Abraham took sheep and cattle and gave them to Abimelech. Then the two men made an agreement. ²⁸ Abraham set seven lambs of the flock away from the others. ²⁹ Abimelech said to Abraham, “What do these seven lambs that you have set apart mean?” ³⁰ Abraham said, “Take these seven lambs from me as an agreement to me that I dug this well.” ³¹ So he gave that place the name Beersheba because both of them made a promise there. ³² So they made an agreement at Beersheba. Then Abimelech and Phicol, the head of his army, returned to the land of the Philistines. ³³ Abraham planted a tree at Beersheba. He called there on the name of the Lord, the God Who lives forever. ³⁴ And Abraham stayed in the land of the Philistines for many days.

8 Now, because of this, those who belong to Christ will not suffer the punishment of sin. ² The power of the Holy Spirit has made me free from the power of sin and death. This power is mine because I belong to Christ Jesus. ³ The Law could not make me free from the power of sin and death. It was weak because it had to work with weak human beings. But God sent His own Son. He came to earth in a body of flesh which could be tempted to sin as we in our bodies can be. He gave Himself to take away sin. By doing that, He took away the power sin had over us. ⁴ In that way, Jesus did for us what the Law said had to be done. We do not do what our sinful old selves tell us to do anymore. Now we do what the Holy Spirit wants us to do. ⁵ Those who let their sinful old selves tell them what to do live under that power of their sinful old selves. But those who let the Holy Spirit tell them what to do are under His power. ⁶ If your sinful old self is the boss over your mind, it leads to death. But if the Holy Spirit is the boss over your mind, it leads to life and peace. ⁷ The mind that thinks only of ways to please the sinful old self is fighting against God. It is not able to obey God’s Laws. It never can. ⁸ Those who do what their sinful old selves want to do cannot please God.

⁹ But you are not doing what your sinful old selves want you to do. You are doing what the Holy Spirit tells you to do, if you have God’s Spirit living in you. No one belongs to Christ if he does not have Christ’s Spirit in him. ¹⁰ If Christ is in you, your spirit lives because you are right with God, and yet your body is dead because of sin. ¹¹ The Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead. If the same Holy Spirit lives in you, He will give life to your bodies in the same way.