Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

22 (vii) After these things, God tested Avraham. He said to him, “Avraham!” and he answered, “Here I am.” ² He said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Yitz’chak; and go to the land of Moriyah. There you are to offer him as a burnt offering on a mountain that I will point out to you.”

³ Avraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, together with Yitz’chak his son. He cut the wood for the burnt offering, departed and went toward the place God had told him about. ⁴ On the third day, Avraham raised his eyes and saw the place in the distance. ⁵ Avraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go there, worship and return to you.” ⁶ Avraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on Yitz’chak his son. Then he took in his hand the fire and the knife, and they both went on together.

⁷ Yitz’chak spoke to Avraham his father: “My father?” He answered, “Here I am, my son.” He said, “I see the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” ⁸ Avraham replied, “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son”; and they both went on together.

⁹ They came to the place God had told him about; and Avraham built the altar there, set the wood in order, bound Yitz’chak his son and laid him on the altar, on the wood. ¹⁰ Then Avraham put out his hand and took the knife to kill his son.

¹¹ But the angel of Adonai called to him out of heaven: “Avraham? Avraham!” He answered, “Here I am.” ¹² He said, “Don’t lay your hand on the boy! Don’t do anything to him! For now I know that you are a man who fears God, because you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” ¹³ Avraham raised his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in the bushes by its horns. Avraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in place of his son. ¹⁴ Avraham called the place Adonai Yir’eh [Adonai will see (to it), Adonai provides] — as it is said to this day, “On the mountain Adonai is seen.”

¹² Therefore, do not let sin rule in your mortal bodies, so that it makes you obey its desires; ¹³ and do not offer any part of yourselves to sin as an instrument for wickedness. On the contrary, offer yourselves to God as people alive from the dead, and your various parts to God as instruments for righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin will not have authority over you; because you are not under legalism but under grace.

¹⁵ Therefore, what conclusion should we reach? “Let’s go on sinning, because we’re not under legalism but under grace”? Heaven forbid! ¹⁶ Don’t you know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, then, of the one whom you are obeying, you are slaves — whether of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to being made righteous? ¹⁷ By God’s grace, you, who were once slaves to sin, obeyed from your heart the pattern of teaching to which you were exposed; ¹⁸ and after you had been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. ¹⁹ (I am using popular language because your human nature is so weak.) For just as you used to offer your various parts as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led to more lawlessness; so now offer your various parts as slaves to righteousness, which leads to being made holy, set apart for God. ²⁰ For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in relationship to righteousness; ²¹ but what benefit did you derive from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end result of those things was death. ²² However, now, freed from sin and enslaved to God, you do get the benefit — it consists in being made holy, set apart for God, and its end result is eternal life. ²³ For what one earns from sin is death; but eternal life is what one receives as a free gift from God, in union with the Messiah Yeshua, our Lord.

⁴⁰ “Whoever receives you is receiving me, and whoever receives me is receiving the One who sent me. ⁴¹ Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive the reward a prophet gets, and anyone who receives a tzaddik because he is a tzaddik will receive the reward a tzaddik gets. ⁴² Indeed, if someone gives just a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my talmid — yes! — I tell you, he will certainly not lose his reward!”