Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
23 Praise the Lord, all you who worship him.
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him.
Fear him, all you Israelites.
24 The Lord does not ignore
the one who is in trouble.
He doesn’t hide from him.
He listens when the one in trouble calls out to him.
25 Lord, I praise you in the great meeting of your people.
These worshipers will see me do what I promised.
26 Poor people will eat until they are full.
Those who look to the Lord will praise him.
May your hearts live forever!
27 People everywhere will remember
and will turn to the Lord.
All the families of the nations
will worship him.
28 This is because the Lord is King.
He rules the nations.
29 All the powerful people on earth will eat and worship.
Everyone will bow down to him.
30 The people in the future will serve him.
They will always be told about the Lord.
31 They will tell that he does what is right.
People who are not yet born
will hear what God has done.
God’s Agreement with Abram
15 After these things happened, the Lord spoke his word to Abram in a vision. God said, “Abram, don’t be afraid. I will defend you. And I will give you a great reward.”
2 But Abram said, “Lord God, what can you give me? I have no son. So my slave Eliezer from Damascus will get everything I own after I die.” 3 Abram said, “Look, you have given me no son. So a slave born in my house will inherit everything I have.”
4 Then the Lord spoke his word to Abram. He said, “That slave will not be the one to inherit what you have. You will have a son of your own. And your son will inherit what you have.”
5 Then God led Abram outside. God said, “Look at the sky. There are so many stars you cannot count them. And your descendants will be too many to count.”
6 Abram believed the Lord. And the Lord accepted Abram’s faith, and that faith made him right with God.
12 As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep. While he was asleep, a very terrible darkness came. 13 Then the Lord said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers and travel in a land they don’t own. The people there will make them slaves. And they will do cruel things to them for 400 years. 14 But I will punish the nation where they are slaves. Then your descendants will leave that land, taking great wealth with them. 15 Abram, you will live to be very old. You will die in peace and will be buried. 16 After your great-great-grandchildren are born, your people will come to this land again. It will take that long, because the Amorites are not yet evil enough to punish.”
17 The sun went down, and it was very dark. Suddenly a smoking firepot and a blazing torch passed between the halves of the dead animals.[a] 18 So on that day the Lord made an agreement with Abram. The Lord said, “I will give this land to your descendants. I will give them the land between the river of Egypt and the great river Euphrates.
How God Makes People Right
21 But God has a way to make people right with him without the law. And God has now shown us that way which the law and the prophets told us about. 22 God makes people right with himself through their faith in Jesus Christ. This is true for all who believe in Christ, because all are the same. 23 All people have sinned and are not good enough for God’s glory. 24 People are made right with God by his grace, which is a free gift. They are made right with God by being made free from sin through Jesus Christ. 25 God sent him to die in our place to take away our sins. We receive forgiveness through faith. And all of this is because of the blood of Jesus’ death. This showed that God always does what is right and fair. God was right in the past when he was patient and did not punish people for their sins. 26 And God gave Jesus to show today that God does what is right. God did this so that he could judge rightly and also make right any person who has faith in Jesus.
27 So do we have a reason to brag about ourselves? No! And why not? It is the way of faith that stops all bragging, not the way of following the law. 28 A person is made right with God through faith, not through what he does to follow the law. 29 Is God only the God of the Jews? Is he not also the God of the non-Jews? 30 Of course he is, for there is only one God. He will make Jews right with him by their faith. And he will also make non-Jews right with him through their faith. 31 So do we destroy the law by following the way of faith? No! Faith causes us to be what the law truly wants.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.