Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Isaiah Becomes a Prophet

6 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a very high throne. His long robe filled the Temple. ² Burning heavenly creatures stood above him. Each creature had six wings. They used two wings to cover their faces. They used two wings to cover their feet. And they used two wings for flying. ³ Each creature was calling to the others:

⁴ Their voices caused the frame around the door to shake. The Temple filled with smoke.

⁵ I said, “Oh, no! I will be destroyed. I am not pure. And I live among people who are not pure. But I have seen the King, the Lord of heaven’s armies.”

⁶ On the altar there was a fire. One of the burning heavenly creatures used a pair of tongs to take a hot coal from the fire. Then he flew to me with the hot coal in his hand. ⁷ The creature touched my mouth with the hot coal. Then he said, “Look. Your guilt is taken away because this hot coal has touched your lips. Your sin is taken away.”

⁸ Then I heard the Lord’s voice. He said, “Whom can I send? Who will go for us?”

So I said, “Here I am. Send me!”

God in the Thunderstorm

A song of David.

¹² So, my brothers, we must not be ruled by our sinful selves. We must not live the way our sinful selves want. ¹³ If you use your lives to do the wrong things your sinful selves want, then you will die spiritually. But if you use the Spirit’s help to stop doing the wrong things you do with your body, then you will have true life.

¹⁴ The true children of God are those who let God’s Spirit lead them. ¹⁵ The Spirit that we received is not a spirit that makes us slaves again to fear. The Spirit that we have makes us children of God. And with that Spirit we say, “Father, dear Father.”^{[a] 16} And the Spirit himself joins with our spirits to say that we are God’s children. ¹⁷ If we are God’s children, then we will receive the blessings God has for us. We will receive these things from God together with Christ. But we must suffer as Christ suffered, and then we will have glory as Christ has glory.

Jesus and Nicodemus

3 There was a man named Nicodemus who was one of the Pharisees. He was an important Jewish leader. ² One night Nicodemus came to Jesus. He said, “Teacher, we know that you are a teacher sent from God. No one can do the miracles you do, unless God is with him.”

³ Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth. Unless you are born again, you cannot be in God’s kingdom.”

⁴ Nicodemus said, “But if a man is already old, how can he be born again? He cannot enter his mother’s body again. So how can he be born a second time?”

⁵ But Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth. Unless you are born from water and the Spirit, you cannot enter God’s kingdom. ⁶ A person’s body is born from his human parents. But a person’s spiritual life is born from the Spirit. ⁷ Don’t be surprised when I tell you, ‘You must all be born again.’ ⁸ The wind blows where it wants to go. You hear the wind blow. But you don’t know where the wind comes from or where it is going. It is the same with every person who is born from the Spirit.”

⁹ Nicodemus asked, “How can all this be possible?”

¹⁰ Jesus said, “You are an important teacher in Israel. But you still don’t understand these things? ¹¹ I tell you the truth. We talk about what we know. We tell about what we have seen. But you don’t accept what we tell you. ¹² I have told you about things here on earth, but you do not believe me. So surely you will not believe me if I tell you about the things of heaven! ¹³ The only one who has ever gone up to heaven is the One who came down from heaven—the Son of Man.^[a]

¹⁴ “Moses lifted up the snake in the desert.^[b] It is the same with the Son of Man. The Son of Man must be lifted up too. ¹⁵ Then everyone who believes in him can have eternal life.

¹⁶ “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son. God gave his Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life. ¹⁷ God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world guilty, but to save the world through him.