Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Days Five and Six—Animals and Man

Closing Benediction and Prayer

The Division of the Earth

11 The whole earth had one language and a single vocabulary. ² As people traveled in the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they settled there. ³ They said to one another, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used mud brick instead of stone for building material, and they used tar for mortar. ⁴ They said, “Come, let’s build a city for ourselves and a tower whose top reaches to the sky, and let’s make a name for ourselves, so that we will not be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

⁵ The Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the people were building. ⁶ The Lord said, “If this is the first thing they are doing as one people, who all have one language, then nothing that they intend to do will be too difficult for them. ⁷ Come, let’s go down there and confuse their language, so that they cannot understand one another’s speech.”

⁸ So the Lord scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ It was named Babel,^[a] because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

The Diversity of the Gifts Enhances the Unity of the Body of Christ

¹² For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so also is Christ. ¹³ For by^[a] one Spirit we all were baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free people, and we were all caused to drink one Spirit. ¹⁴ Furthermore, the body is not one member, but many. ¹⁵ If the foot says, “Because I am not a hand, I am not part of the body,” it does not on that account cease to be part of the body. ¹⁶ If the ear says, “Because I am not an eye, I am not part of the body,” it does not on that account cease to be part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But now God has arranged the members in the body, each and every one of them, as he desired. ¹⁹ If they were all one member, where would the body be? ²⁰ But as it is, there are many members, yet one body.

²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need for you,” or again the head to the feet, “I have no need for you.” ²² On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are much more necessary. ²³ As for the parts of the body we consider less honorable, these we provide with more honor. We treat our unpresentable parts with more modesty, ²⁴ whereas our presentable parts have no such need. But God put the body together in a way that gave more honor to the parts that lack it. ²⁵ He did it so that there might not be any division in the body, but that the members might all have the same concern for one another. ²⁶ So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

²⁷ You are the body of Christ, and individually you are members of it.