Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

God saved me from death^[a]

¹⁵ So Rahab put a rope out through the window of her house. (The house that she lived in was part of the city wall.) The men climbed down the rope. ¹⁶ Rahab told them, ‘Go to the hills. The men who are chasing you will not find you there. Hide there for three days until they return to this city. Then you can go back to your people.’

¹⁷ The men said to her, ‘If you do what we say, we will do what we have promised. ¹⁸ We will soon attack this land. So tie this red string in the window that we came through.^[a] Bring your father, your mother, your brothers and sisters and all your family into your house. ¹⁹ If any of them leaves your house, they may die. If that happens, we will not be guilty. We will only be guilty if our soldiers hurt anyone who is in your house. ²⁰ But if you tell anyone about us, we do not have to do what we have promised to you.’

²¹ Rahab said, ‘I agree with what you have said.’ She sent the men away. When they had gone, she tied the red string in her window.

²² The two Israelite men went into the hills and they hid there. The king's officers looked along the road for them for three days. They did not find them, so they returned to Jericho. ²³ Then the two men came down from the hills and they crossed the Jordan River. They went back to Joshua. They told him everything that had happened. ²⁴ They said to him, ‘We are sure that the Lord has given us the whole land. All the people there are very frightened of us.’

¹⁷ How we believe in God is also like that. If our faith does not lead us to do good things, then it is not worth anything. It is dead!

¹⁸ Someone may say, ‘You believe in God, but I do good things to help people.’ Then I would say, ‘You cannot show me that you believe in God if you do not do good things. I do good things, and that shows that I really believe in God.’ ¹⁹ You believe that there is only one God. That is good! But even the demons believe that! And it makes them very afraid.

²⁰ You fool! If someone's faith does not lead them to do good things, it is not worth anything. You should know that! ²¹ Think about our ancestor Abraham. He offered his son Isaac on the altar as a gift to God.^[a] Because he did that good thing, God accepted him as right with himself. ²² Abraham believed in God, and he did what God asked him to do. So you can see that both of these were necessary. When he did this good thing, he showed that he believed in God completely. ²³ The Bible tells us what happened. It says, ‘Abraham believed God. As a result, God accepted Abraham as right with him.’^[b] God also called Abraham his friend.

²⁴ So you see how God accepts someone as right with himself. That person must not only believe in God. He must also do good things to show that he has faith.

²⁵ It was the same with Rahab, long ago. She was a prostitute. She helped some of God's people who came to her house. She kept them safe from their enemies and she sent them away again by a different road.^[c] Because she did those good things, God accepted her as right with himself. ²⁶ If our bodies have no spirit, they are dead. In the same way, if our faith does not lead us to do good things, it is dead.