Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Parashah 7: Vayetze (He went out) 28:10 –32:3(2)

¹⁰ Ya‘akov went out from Be’er-Sheva and traveled toward Haran. ¹¹ He came to a certain place and stayed the night there, because the sun had set. He took a stone from the place, put it under his head and lay down there to sleep. ¹² He dreamt that there before him was a ladder resting on the ground with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of Adonai were going up and down on it. ¹³ Then suddenly Adonai was standing there next to him; and he said, “I am Adonai, the God of Avraham your [grand]father and the God of Yitz’chak. The land on which you are lying I will give to you and to your descendants. ¹⁴ Your descendants will be as numerous as the grains of dust on the earth. You will expand to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. By you and your descendants all the families of the earth will be blessed. ¹⁵ Look, I am with you. I will guard you wherever you go, and I will bring you back into this land, because I won’t leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

¹⁶ Ya‘akov awoke from his sleep and said, “Truly, Adonai is in this place — and I didn’t know it!” ¹⁷ Then he became afraid and said, “This place is fearsome! This has to be the house of God! This is the gate of heaven!” ¹⁸ Ya‘akov got up early in the morning, took the stone he had put under his head, set it up as a standing-stone, poured olive oil on its top ¹⁹ and named the place Beit-El [house of God]; but the town had originally been called Luz.

¹² So then, brothers, we don’t owe a thing to our old nature that would require us to live according to our old nature. ¹³ For if you live according to your old nature, you will certainly die; but if, by the Spirit, you keep putting to death the practices of the body, you will live.

¹⁴ All who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons. ¹⁵ For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to bring you back again into fear; on the contrary, you received the Spirit, who makes us sons and by whose power we cry out, “Abba!” (that is, “Dear Father!”). ¹⁶ The Spirit himself bears witness with our own spirits that we are children of God; ¹⁷ and if we are children, then we are also heirs, heirs of God and joint-heirs with the Messiah — provided we are suffering with him in order also to be glorified with him.

¹⁸ I don’t think the sufferings we are going through now are even worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed to us in the future. ¹⁹ The creation waits eagerly for the sons of God to be revealed; ²⁰ for the creation was made subject to frustration — not willingly, but because of the one who subjected it. But it was given a reliable hope ²¹ that it too would be set free from its bondage to decay and would enjoy the freedom accompanying the glory that God’s children will have. ²² We know that until now, the whole creation has been groaning as with the pains of childbirth; ²³ and not only it, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we continue waiting eagerly to be made sons — that is, to have our whole bodies redeemed and set free. ²⁴ It was in this hope that we were saved. But if we see what we hope for, it isn’t hope — after all, who hopes for what he already sees? ²⁵ But if we continue hoping for something we don’t see, then we still wait eagerly for it, with perseverance.

²⁴ Yeshua put before them another parable. “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; ²⁵ but while people were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, then went away. ²⁶ When the wheat sprouted and formed heads of grain, the weeds also appeared. ²⁷ The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where have the weeds come from?’ ²⁸ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants asked him, ‘Then do you want us to go and pull them up?’ ²⁹ But he said, ‘No, because if you pull up the weeds, you might uproot some of the wheat at the same time. ³⁰ Let them both grow together until the harvest; and at harvest-time I will tell the reapers to collect the weeds first and tie them in bundles to be burned, but to gather the wheat into my barn.’”

³⁶ Then he left the crowds and went into the house. His talmidim approached him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.” ³⁷ He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; ³⁸ the field is the world. As for the good seed, these are the people who belong to the Kingdom; and the weeds are the people who belong to the Evil One. ³⁹ The enemy who sows them is the Adversary, the harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. ⁴⁰ Just as the weeds are collected and burned up in the fire, so will it be at the end of the age. ⁴¹ The Son of Man will send forth his angels, and they will collect out of his Kingdom all the things that cause people to sin and all the people who are far from Torah; ⁴² and they will throw them into the fiery furnace, where people will wail and grind their teeth. ⁴³ Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let him hear!