Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 46^[a]

God, Refuge of His People

¹ For the director.^[b] A song of the sons of Korah. According to alamoth.

⁴ This was the origin of the heavens and the earth when they were first created.

Origin of Human Beings.^[a] When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, ⁵ there were not yet any plants of the field nor had any herbs sprouted in the field, for the Lord God had not yet made it rain upon the earth and there was no one to till the soil. ⁶ He made a mist rise out of the ground to water the whole surface of the earth. ⁷ Then the Lord God formed man^[b] out of the dust of the earth and he breathed his breath of life into his nostrils and man became a living creature.

⁸ And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden,^[c] in the east, and he put the man he had formed there. ⁹ The Lord God made all sorts of beautiful and nourishing trees sprout out of the earth, among which was the tree of life^[d] in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰ A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; then it divided into four tributaries. ^11 [e]The first river was called the Pishon. It waters the whole land of Havilah where one can find gold, ¹² and the gold of that land is good. One can also find bdellium and onyx in that land. ¹³ The second river is the Gihon. It flows in the land of Ethiopia. ¹⁴ The third river is the Tigris. It flows to the east of the land of Asshur. The fourth river is the Euphrates.

¹⁵ The Lord God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden so that he might work it and care for it. ¹⁶ The Lord God told the man, “You can eat of any of the trees in the garden, ¹⁷ but you must never eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you were to eat from it, you would surely die.”

^18 [f]And the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.^[g] I wish to make another creature who will be like him.”

¹⁹ The Lord God therefore formed every sort of wild animal and all the birds of the air, and he brought them before the man to see what he would name them.^[h] Whatever the man called each living creature, that was the name that it would bear. ²⁰ The man gave names to every type of animal, all the birds of the air and all the wild animals, but the man could not find anything that was like him.

²¹ The Lord God therefore caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. He took one of his ribs and replaced it with flesh. ²² The Lord God then formed a woman out of the rib that he had taken from the man. He brought her before the man.

²³ The man said,

²⁴ This is why a man leaves his father and his mother^[j] and joins with a wife, and the two become one flesh.

²⁵ Now the man and the woman were naked, but they did not feel any shame.

The Word of God Has Not Proved False. ⁶ It is not as though the word of God has proved false. For not all who were Israelites truly belong to Israel, ⁷ and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that descendants will bear your name.”

⁸ In other words, it is not through physical descent that people are regarded as children of God. Rather, the children of the promise are those who are counted as descendants. ⁹ For this is how the promise was worded: “About this time next year I shall return, and Sarah will have a son.”

¹⁰ And not only that, but Rebekah became pregnant by one man, her husband Isaac. ¹¹ Yet even before her children had been born or done anything good or bad, in order that God’s purpose of election might prevail, ¹² dependent not on human works but on his call, she was told, “The older shall serve the younger.” ¹³ As it is written,