Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

A Prayer of Thanks for Victory

The Story of Creation

1 In the beginning, when God created the universe,^{[a] 2} the earth was formless and desolate. The raging ocean that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, and the Spirit of God^[b] was moving over the water. ^3 (A)Then God commanded, “Let there be light”—and light appeared. ⁴ God was pleased with what he saw. Then he separated the light from the darkness, ⁵ and he named the light “Day” and the darkness “Night.” Evening passed and morning came—that was the first day.

^6-7 (B)Then God commanded, “Let there be a dome to divide the water and to keep it in two separate places”—and it was done. So God made a dome, and it separated the water under it from the water above it. ⁸ He named the dome “Sky.” Evening passed and morning came—that was the second day.

⁹ Then God commanded, “Let the water below the sky come together in one place, so that the land will appear”—and it was done. ¹⁰ He named the land “Earth,” and the water which had come together he named “Sea.” And God was pleased with what he saw. ¹¹ Then he commanded, “Let the earth produce all kinds of plants, those that bear grain and those that bear fruit”—and it was done. ¹² So the earth produced all kinds of plants, and God was pleased with what he saw. ¹³ Evening passed and morning came—that was the third day.

¹⁴ Then God commanded, “Let lights appear in the sky to separate day from night and to show the time when days, years, and religious festivals^[c] begin; ¹⁵ they will shine in the sky to give light to the earth”—and it was done. ¹⁶ So God made the two larger lights, the sun to rule over the day and the moon to rule over the night; he also made the stars. ¹⁷ He placed the lights in the sky to shine on the earth, ¹⁸ to rule over the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God was pleased with what he saw. ¹⁹ Evening passed and morning came—that was the fourth day.

The Resurrection Body

³⁵ Someone will ask, “How can the dead be raised to life? What kind of body will they have?” ³⁶ You fool! When you plant a seed in the ground, it does not sprout to life unless it dies. ³⁷ And what you plant is a bare seed, perhaps a grain of wheat or some other grain, not the full-bodied plant that will later grow up. ³⁸ God provides that seed with the body he wishes; he gives each seed its own proper body.

³⁹ And the flesh of living beings is not all the same kind of flesh; human beings have one kind of flesh, animals another, birds another, and fish another.

⁴⁰ And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; the beauty that belongs to heavenly bodies is different from the beauty that belongs to earthly bodies. ⁴¹ The sun has its own beauty, the moon another beauty, and the stars a different beauty; and even among stars there are different kinds of beauty.

⁴² This is how it will be when the dead are raised to life. When the body is buried, it is mortal; when raised, it will be immortal. ⁴³ When buried, it is ugly and weak; when raised, it will be beautiful and strong. ⁴⁴ When buried, it is a physical body; when raised, it will be a spiritual body. There is, of course, a physical body, so there has to be a spiritual body. ^45 (A)For the scripture says, “The first man, Adam, was created a living being”; but the last Adam is the life-giving Spirit. ⁴⁶ It is not the spiritual that comes first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. ⁴⁷ The first Adam, made of earth, came from the earth; the second Adam came from heaven. ⁴⁸ Those who belong to the earth are like the one who was made of earth; those who are of heaven are like the one who came from heaven. ⁴⁹ Just as we wear the likeness of the man made of earth, so we will wear^[a] the likeness of the Man from heaven.