Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A song of David for going up to the Temple.

The New Beginning

9 God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Have many children. Fill the earth with your people. ² Every animal on earth, every bird in the air, every animal that crawls on the ground, and every fish in the sea will be afraid of you. All of them will be under your control. ³ In the past, I gave you the green plants to eat. Now every animal will also be food for you. I give you everything on earth—it is yours. ⁴ But I give you one command. You must not eat meat that still has its life (blood) in it. ⁵ Also, I will demand your blood for your lives. That is, I will demand the life of any person or animal that takes a human life.

⁷ “Have many children and fill the earth with your people.”

⁸ Then God said to Noah and his sons, ⁹ “I now make my promise to you and to your people who will live after you. ¹⁰ I make my promise to all the birds, and to all the cattle, and to all the animals that came out of the boat with you. I make my promise to every living thing on earth. ¹¹ This is my promise to you: All life on the earth was destroyed by the flood. But that will never happen again. A flood will never again destroy all life on the earth.”

¹² And God said, “I will give you something to prove that I made this promise to you. It will continue forever to show that I have made an agreement with you and every living thing on earth. ¹³ I am putting a rainbow in the clouds as proof of the agreement between me and the earth. ¹⁴ When I bring clouds over the earth, you will see the rainbow in the clouds. ¹⁵ When I see this rainbow, I will remember the agreement between me and you and every living thing on the earth. This agreement says that a flood will never again destroy all life on the earth. ¹⁶ When I look and see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember the agreement that continues forever. I will remember the agreement between me and every living thing on the earth.”

¹⁷ So God said to Noah, “This rainbow is proof of the agreement that I made with all living things on earth.”

³² Do I need to give you more examples? I don’t have enough time to tell you about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets. ³³ All of them had great faith. And with that faith they defeated kingdoms. They did what was right, and God helped them in the ways he promised. With their faith some people closed the mouths of lions. ³⁴ And some were able to stop blazing fires. Others escaped from being killed with swords. Some who were weak were made strong. They became powerful in battle and defeated other armies. ³⁵ There were women who lost loved ones but got them back when they were raised from death. Others were tortured but refused to accept their freedom. They did this so that they could be raised from death to a better life. ³⁶ Some were laughed at and beaten. Others were tied up and put in prison. ³⁷ They were killed with stones. They were cut in half. They were killed with swords. The only clothes some of them had were sheepskins or goatskins. They were poor, persecuted, and treated badly by others. ³⁸ The world was not good enough for these great people. They had to wander in deserts and mountains, living in caves and holes in the ground.

³⁹ God was pleased with all of them because of their faith. But not one of them received God’s great promise. ⁴⁰ God planned something better for us. He wanted to make us perfect. Of course, he wanted those great people to be made perfect too, but not before we could all enjoy that blessing together.