Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
23 [a]I will proclaim your name to my family;
in the midst of the assembly I will praise you:[b]
24 “You who fear the Lord, praise him.
All you descendants of Jacob,[c] give him glory.
Revere him, all you descendants of Israel.
25 For he has not scorned or disregarded
the wretched man in his suffering;
he has not hidden his face[d] from him
but has heeded his call for help.”
26 I will offer my praise to you in the great assembly;
in the presence of those who fear him, I will fulfill my vows.[e]
27 [f]The poor[g] will eat and be filled;
those who seek the Lord will praise him:
“May your hearts live forever.”
28 All the ends of the earth
will remember and turn to the Lord.
All the families of the nations
will bow low before him.
29 For kingly power belongs to the Lord;
he is the ruler of all the nations.
30 All those who prosper on the earth will bow down before him;
all those who lie in the grave will kneel in homage.
31 [h]But I will live for the Lord,
and my descendants will serve him.
Chapter 16
Abram’s Son Ishmael.[a] 1 Now Sarai, the wife of Abram, did not have any children. She had an Egyptian slave named Hagar. 2 Sarai said to Abram, “Behold, the Lord has kept me from having children; sleep with my slave. Maybe I can have children through her.”
Abram did what Sarai had told him to do. 3 Thus, ten years after Abram had begun to live in the land of Canaan, Sarai, the wife of Abram, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. 4 He slept with Hagar, and she became pregnant.
But once she realized that she was pregnant, she no longer treated her mistress with respect. 5 Therefore, Sarai said to Abram, “May this affront fall upon you! I gave you my maid to embrace, but when she realized that she was pregnant, she stopped treating me with respect. Let the Lord judge between you and me.”
6 Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your slave is in your hands. Do with her as you see fit.” Sarai then maltreated her so much that Hagar ran away.
Abraham Justified through Faith[a]
Chapter 4
Justified through Faith, Not Works.[b] 1 What then are we to say about Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? 2 If Abraham was justified by the works he did, he has good reason to boast, but not in the eyes of God. 3 For what does Scripture say? “Abraham placed his faith in God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”[c]
4 Now when a man works, his wages are not regarded as a gift but as something that is due to him. 5 However, when someone who does not work places his faith in one who justifies the godless, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 6 [d]In the same way, David speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God attributes righteousness apart from works:
7 “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven
and whose sins are blotted out.
8 Blessed is the man
to whom the Lord imputes no guilt.”
Justified before Being Circumcised.[e] 9 Is this blessedness granted only to the circumcised, or does it apply to the uncircumcised as well? We have asserted that Abraham’s faith “was credited to him as righteousness.” 10 How was it credited? Was it when he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Not when he was circumcised, but when he was uncircumcised.
11 Abraham received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. In this way, he was the father of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness credited to them. 12 Therefore, he is the father of the circumcised who have not only received circumcision but also follow that path of faith traversed by Abraham before he was circumcised.
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