Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A song to sing as we climb.

⁹ After they had crossed the river, Elijah said to Elisha, ‘The Lord will soon take me away from you. What do you want me to do for you before that happens?’ Elisha replied, ‘Please let me have twice as much of your spirit.’ ¹⁰ Elijah said, ‘You have asked a difficult thing. But watch carefully when God takes me from you. If you see it happen, you will receive that spirit. If you do not see me, you will not receive it.’

¹¹ So they walked along and they talked together. Suddenly a chariot that was burning with fire appeared. The horses that pulled it were also burning with fire. The chariot went between Elijah and Elisha. Elijah went up to heaven in a storm of wind. ¹² When Elisha saw this, he shouted, ‘My father! My father!^[a] You are riding in Israel's chariot! Israel's men are riding on the horses!’

After that, Elisha could not see Elijah again. He took hold of his own clothes and he tore them into pieces because he was very upset. ¹³ He picked up Elijah's coat that had fallen off. He went and he stood on the shore of the Jordan River. ¹⁴ He took Elijah's coat and he hit the water with it. He said, ‘Now is the Lord, Elijah's God, with me?’ When he hit the water with Elijah's coat, the water became separate, to the left side and to the right side. Elisha went across the river.

¹⁵ The group of prophets from Jericho were standing not far away. They saw what happened. They said, ‘The spirit that gave power to Elijah is now with Elisha.’ They went to meet Elisha. They bent down low to the ground to respect him. ¹⁶ They said to him, ‘Please, sir! We are your servants. We have 50 strong men with us. Let them go and look for your master. Perhaps the Spirit^[b] of the Lord has carried him away. Maybe it has dropped him somewhere on a mountain or in a valley.’ But Elisha replied, ‘No. Do not send them to look for him.’

¹⁷ But the prophets asked him many times to do this. Elisha was too ashamed to refuse. So he said, ‘Send them to look.’ They sent 50 men who looked for Elijah for three days. But they did not find him. ¹⁸ When they returned, Elisha was waiting for them in Jericho. He said to them, ‘I told you not to go and look for Elijah.’

Elisha shows that he has God's authority

¹⁹ One day, the leaders in Jericho said to Elisha, ‘Please listen to us, sir. You can see that our city is in a good place. But the water here is bad. The land does not give us good crops.’ ²⁰ Elisha said, ‘Bring a new bowl to me with some salt in it.’ So they brought it to him. ²¹ Then Elisha went out to the city's spring of water. He threw the salt into it. He said, ‘This is what the Lord says: “I have made this water clean again. It will no longer cause people to die. The land will no longer be useless for crops.” ’

²² Since that time, the water has always been pure. This is what Elisha had said would happen.

¹⁷ Friends, when you did all this to Jesus, you did not really know what you were doing. Your leaders also did not understand. ¹⁸ Jesus was God's Messiah. A long time ago, many of God's prophets spoke about him. They spoke God's message about what would happen to the Messiah. They said that he would suffer. God has now caused these things to happen. ¹⁹ So you must stop doing wrong things. Change how you live and turn to God. Then God will forgive you for all the wrong things that you have done. ²⁰ The Lord God will help you. Times will come when he will cause your spirit to be strong. He has already chosen Jesus as the one to help you. He is God's Messiah, and God will send him back to you again. ²¹ Jesus must stay in heaven until the day that God will cause everything to become new again. Long ago God gave his prophets a message about this, and they told that message to people. ²² For example, Moses said this about the Messiah a long time ago: “The Lord your God will send you a prophet. He will be one of your own people. He will speak God's message as I have done. You must obey everything that he says to you. ²³ God will punish anyone who does not obey that prophet. He will no longer be one of God's people and God will destroy him.” ’^[a]

²⁴ Peter then said, ‘All of God's prophets spoke about what is happening in these days. Samuel was one of them, and all the prophets who came later also spoke the same message. ²⁵ You are the people who receive that message from God today. The promise that God made to bless our ancestors is the same promise that he makes to you. God said to our ancestor Abraham, “Through your descendants, I will bless all the people on the earth.”^[b]

²⁶ God chose Jesus to be his special servant. God sent him to you first. He wants to help you, so that you stop doing bad things. That is how he will bless you.’

The priests put Peter and John in prison

4 Peter and John were still speaking to the crowd in the yard of the temple. Then some priests, the leader of the police in the temple and some Sadducees came to them. ² They were angry because of the things that Peter and John were teaching the people there. They were teaching that Jesus had become alive again after his death. The Jewish leaders did not agree that dead people could become alive again. ³ So they took hold of Peter and John. They put them in prison, because by then it was evening time. They put them in the prison until the next day. ⁴ But many of the people who had heard Peter's message believed what he said. There were now about 5,000 men who believed in Jesus.