Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

The Command to Offer Isaac

22 Sometime later, God tested Abraham. He called out to him, “Abraham!”

“Here I am!” he answered.

² God^[a] said, “Please take your son, your unique son whom you love—Isaac—and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him as a burnt offering there on one of the mountains that I will point out to you.”

³ So Abraham got up early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his male servants^[b] with him, along with his son Isaac. He cut the wood for the burnt offering and set out to go to the place about which God had spoken to him. ⁴ On the third day he looked ahead and saw the place from a distance.

⁵ Abraham ordered his two servants,^[c] “Both of you are to stay here with the donkey. Now as for the youth and me, we’ll go up there, we’ll worship, and then we’ll return to you.” ⁶ Then Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac. Abraham^[d] carried the fire and the knife. And so the two of them went on together.

Abraham Answers Isaac’s Question

⁷ Isaac addressed his father Abraham: “My father!”

“I’m here, my son,” Abraham replied.

Isaac asked, “The fire and the wood are here, but where’s the lamb for the burnt offering?”

⁸ Abraham answered, “God will provide^[e] himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”

The two of them went on together ⁹ and came to the place about which God had spoken. Abraham built an altar there, arranged the wood, tied up his son Isaac, and placed him on the altar on top of the wood. ¹⁰ Then he stretched out his hand and grabbed the knife to slaughter his son.

The Angel of the Lord Intervenes

¹¹ Just then, an angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven and said, “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he answered.

¹² “Don’t lay your hand on the youth!” he said. “Don’t do anything to him, because I’ve just demonstrated^[f] that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only unique one, from me.”

¹³ Then Abraham looked up and behind him to see a ram caught by its horns in the thicket. So Abraham went over, grabbed the ram, and offered it as a burnt offering in place of his son. ¹⁴ Abraham named that place, “The Lord Will Provide,”^[g] as it is told this day, “On the Lord’s mountain, he will provide.”^[h]

To the Director: A Davidic Psalm.

A Prayer for Deliverance

¹² Therefore, do not let sin rule your mortal bodies so that you obey their desires. ¹³ Stop offering^[a] the parts of your body^[b] to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. Instead, offer yourselves to God as people who have been brought from death to life and the parts of your body^[c] as instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin will not have mastery over you, because you are not under Law but under grace.

¹⁵ What, then, does this mean?^[d] Should we go on sinning because we are not under Law but under grace? Of course not! ¹⁶ Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thank God that, though you were once slaves of sin, you became obedient from your hearts to that form of teaching with which you were entrusted! ¹⁸ And since you have been freed from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

¹⁹ I am speaking in simple^[e] terms because of the frailty of your human nature.^[f] Just as you once offered the parts of your body^[g] as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater disobedience, so now, in the same way, you must offer the parts of your body^[h] as slaves to righteousness that leads to sanctification. ²⁰ For when you were slaves of sin, you were “free” as far as righteousness was concerned. ²¹ What benefit did you get from doing those things you are now ashamed of? For those things resulted in death. ²² But now that you have been freed from sin and have become God’s slaves, the benefit you reap is sanctification, and the result is eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in union with the Messiah^[i] Jesus our Lord.

Rewards^(A)

⁴⁰ “The one who receives you receives me, and the one who receives me receives the one who sent me. ⁴¹ The one who receives a prophet as^[a] a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person as^[b] a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. ⁴² I tell all of you^[c] with certainty, whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is^[d] a disciple will never lose his reward.”