Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 118

1 In the beginning, God created everything: the heavens above and the earth below. Here’s what happened: ² At first the earth lacked shape and was totally empty, and a dark fog draped over the deep while God’s spirit-wind hovered over the surface of the empty waters. Then there was the voice of God.

And light flashed into being. ⁴ God saw that the light was beautiful and good, and He separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God named the light “day” and the darkness “night.” Evening gave way to morning. That was day one.

⁷ So God parted the waters and formed this expanse, separating the waters above from the waters below. It happened just as God said. ⁸ And God called the vast expanse “sky.” Evening gave way to morning. That was day two.

It happened just as God said. ¹⁰ God called the dry land “earth” and the waters congregated below “seas.” And God saw that His new creation was beautiful and good.

It happened just as God said. ¹² The earth produced vegetation—seed-bearing plants of all varieties and fruit-bearing trees of all sorts. And God saw that His new creation was beautiful and good. ¹³ Evening gave way to morning. That was day three.

It happened just as God said. ¹⁶ God fashioned the two great lights—the brighter to mark the course of day, the dimmer to mark the course of night—and the Divine needled night with the stars. ¹⁷ God set them in heavens’ sky to cast warm light on the earth, ¹⁸ to rule over the day and night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that His new creation was beautiful and good. ¹⁹ Evening gave way to morning. That was day four.

³⁵ Now I know what some of you are thinking: “Just how are the dead going to be raised? What kind of bodies will they have when they come back to life?” ³⁶ Don’t be a fool! The seed you plant doesn’t produce life unless it dies. Right? ³⁷ The seed doesn’t have the same look, the same body, if you will, of what it will have once it starts to grow. It starts out a single, naked seed—whether wheat or some other grain, it doesn’t matter— ³⁸ and God gives to that seed a body just as He has desired. For each of the different kinds of seeds God prepares a unique body. ³⁹ Or look at it this way: not all flesh is the same. Right? There is skin flesh on humans, furry flesh on animals, feathery flesh on birds, and scaly flesh on fish. ⁴⁰ Likewise there are bodies made for the heavens and bodies made for the earth. The heavenly bodies have a different kind of glory or luminescence compared to bodies below. ⁴¹ Even among the heavenly bodies, there is a different level of brilliance: the sun shines differently than the moon, the moon differently than the stars, and the stars themselves differ in their brightness.

⁴² It’s like this with the resurrection of those who have died. The body planted in the earth decays. But the body raised from the earth cannot decay. ⁴³ The body is planted in disgrace and weakness. But the body is raised in splendor and power. ⁴⁴ The body planted in the earth was animated by the physical, material realm. But the body raised from the earth will be animated by the spiritual. Since there is a physical, material body, there will also be a spiritual body. ⁴⁵ That’s why it was written, “The first man Adam became a living soul”; the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶ Everything has an order. The body is not animated first by the spiritual but the physical; then the spiritual becomes its life-giving source. ⁴⁷ The first man, Adam, came from the earth and was made from dust; the second man, Jesus, has come from heaven. ⁴⁸ The earth man shares his earth nature with all those made of earth; likewise the heavenly man shares His heavenly nature with all those made of heaven. ⁴⁹ Just as we have carried the image of the earth man in our bodies, we will^[a] also carry the image of the heavenly man in our new bodies at the resurrection.