Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
6 The year King Uzziah died I saw the Lord! He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the Temple was filled with his glory. 2 Hovering about him were mighty, six-winged angels of fire. With two of their wings they covered their faces, with two others they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3 In a great antiphonal chorus they sang, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is filled with his glory.” 4 Such singing it was! It shook the Temple to its foundations, and suddenly the entire sanctuary was filled with smoke.
5 Then I said, “My doom is sealed, for I am a foul-mouthed sinner, a member of a sinful, foul-mouthed race; and I have looked upon the King, the Lord of heaven’s armies.”
6 Then one of the mighty angels flew over to the altar and with a pair of tongs picked out a burning coal. 7 He touched my lips with it and said, “Now you are pronounced ‘not guilty’ because this coal has touched your lips. Your sins are all forgiven.”
8 Then I heard the Lord asking, “Whom shall I send as a messenger to my people? Who will go?”
And I said, “Lord, I’ll go! Send me.”
29 Praise the Lord, you angels of his; praise his glory and his strength. 2 Praise him for his majestic glory, the glory of his name. Come before him clothed in sacred garments.
3 The voice of the Lord echoes from the clouds. The God of glory thunders through the skies. 4 So powerful is his voice; so full of majesty. 5-6 It breaks down the cedars. It splits the giant trees of Lebanon. It shakes Mount Lebanon and Mount Sirion. They leap and skip before him like young calves! 7 The voice of the Lord thunders through the lightning. 8 It resounds through the deserts and shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. 9 The voice of the Lord spins and topples the mighty oaks.[a] It strips the forests bare. They whirl and sway beneath the blast. But in his Temple all are praising, “Glory, glory to the Lord.”
10 At the Flood the Lord showed his control of all creation. Now he continues to unveil his power. 11 He will give his people strength. He will bless them with peace.
12 So, dear brothers, you have no obligations whatever to your old sinful nature to do what it begs you to do. 13 For if you keep on following it you are lost and will perish, but if through the power of the Holy Spirit you crush it and its evil deeds, you shall live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
15 And so we should not be like cringing, fearful slaves, but we should behave like God’s very own children, adopted into the bosom of his family, and calling to him, “Father, Father.” 16 For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we really are God’s children. 17 And since we are his children, we will share his treasures—for all God gives to his Son Jesus is now ours too. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.
3 1-2 After dark one night a Jewish religious leader named Nicodemus, a member of the sect of the Pharisees, came for an interview with Jesus. “Sir,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miracles are proof enough of this.”
3 Jesus replied, “With all the earnestness I possess I tell you this: Unless you are born again, you can never get into the Kingdom of God.”
4 “Born again!” exclaimed Nicodemus. “What do you mean? How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”
5 Jesus replied, “What I am telling you so earnestly is this: Unless one is born of water and the Spirit,[a] he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. 6 Men can only reproduce human life, but the Holy Spirit gives new life from heaven; 7 so don’t be surprised at my statement that you must be born again! 8 Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it will go next, so it is with the Spirit. We do not know on whom he will next bestow this life from heaven.”
9 “What do you mean?” Nicodemus asked.
10-11 Jesus replied, “You, a respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things? I am telling you what I know and have seen—and yet you won’t believe me. 12 But if you don’t even believe me when I tell you about such things as these that happen here among men, how can you possibly believe if I tell you what is going on in heaven? 13 For only I, the Messiah,[b] have come to earth and will return to heaven again. 14 And as Moses in the wilderness lifted up the bronze image of a serpent on a pole, even so I must be lifted up upon a pole, 15 so that anyone who believes in me will have eternal life. 16 For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son[c] so that anyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.