Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 33

The Sovereignty of the Lord.

Abram and Lot

13 So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him. ² Abram was very wealthy in livestock, in silver and in gold.

³ He continued on his journey from the Negev and came to Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, ⁴ to the place where he first made an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord.

⁵ Now Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. ⁶ But the land was not able to support them both dwelling together because their possessions were so great. ⁷ And there was strife between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestock and the herdsmen of Lot’s livestock. The Canaanites and the Perizzites dwelled in the land at that time.

⁸ So Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no strife, I ask you, between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are close relatives. ⁹ Is not the whole land before you? Please separate from me. If you will go to the left, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right, then I will go to the left.”

¹⁰ Lot lifted up his eyes, and looked at all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as you go to Zoar. This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. ¹¹ Then Lot chose for himself the entire valley of the Jordan and journeyed east, and the two of them separated from each other. ¹² Abram dwelled in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelled in the cities of the valley and pitched his tent as far as Sodom. ¹³ Now the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinners against the Lord.

¹⁴ After Lot had departed from him, the Lord said to Abram, “Lift up now your eyes, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward. ¹⁵ All the land that you see I will give to you and to your descendants forever. ¹⁶ I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth, so that if a man could number the dust of the earth, then your descendants could also be numbered. ¹⁷ Arise, and walk throughout the land across its length and its width, for I will give it to you.”

¹⁸ So Abram moved his tent and came and settled by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built an altar to the Lord there.

¹⁷ These men are wells without water and clouds that are carried by a storm, for whom the gloom of darkness has been reserved forever. ¹⁸ For when they speak arrogant words of vanity, they entice by the lusts of the flesh and by depravity those who barely escaped from those who live in error. ¹⁹ Although they promise them freedom, they themselves are slaves of corruption, for by that which a man is overcome, to this he is enslaved. ²⁰ For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. ²¹ For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and then turn back from the holy commandment that was delivered to them. ²² But it has happened to them according to the true proverb, “The dog returns to his own vomit,”^[a] and “the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mud.”