Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 124

The Lord Is on Our Side

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A song of the ascents. By David.

The Lord Is on Our Side

8 God remembered Noah, as well as all the animals and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. So God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided. ² The fountains of the deep and the floodgates of the sky were also closed, and the rain from the sky was restrained. ³ The waters kept receding from the earth. After the end of one hundred fifty days the waters had decreased. ⁴ In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. ⁵ The waters receded continuously until the tenth month. In the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were visible.

⁶ Then at the end of forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark. ⁷ He sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth, until the waters were dried up from the earth. ⁸ Then he sent out a dove to see if the waters had receded from the surface of the ground, ⁹ but the dove found no place to rest its foot, and it returned to him in the ark, because there was water on the surface of the whole earth. Noah reached out his hand, took the dove, and brought it back to him in the ark. ¹⁰ He waited another seven days. Then he sent the dove out of the ark again. ¹¹ The dove came back to him at evening, and there in its mouth was an olive leaf it had just plucked. So Noah knew that the waters had receded from the earth. ¹² He waited another seven days and sent the dove out again. This time it did not return to him anymore.

¹³ And so in the six hundred first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from the earth. Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked out. He saw that the surface of the ground was dry. ¹⁴ In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dry.

¹⁵ God spoke to Noah. He said, ¹⁶ “Go out of the ark—you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁷ Bring out with you every living thing of every sort that is with you, all flesh, including birds, livestock, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, so that they may swarm over the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”

¹⁸ Noah went out with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives along with him. ¹⁹ Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever swarms on the earth went out of the ship, species by species.^[a]

Dead to Sin and Living for God

6 What shall we say then? Shall we keep on sinning so that grace may increase? ² Absolutely not! We died to sin. How can we go on living in it any longer? ³ Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were therefore buried with him by this baptism into his death, so that just as he was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too would also walk in a new life.

⁵ For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection.

⁶ We know that our old self was crucified with him, to make our sinful body powerless, so that we would not continue to serve sin. ⁷ For the person who has died has been declared free from sin. ⁸ And since we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he will never die again. Death no longer has control over him. ¹⁰ For the death he died, he died to sin once and for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹ In the same way also consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.^[a]