Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

BOOK TWO^(A)

The Prayer of Someone in Exile^[a]

The Prayer of Someone in Exile ^(A)

A Wife for Isaac

24 Abraham was now very old, and the Lord had blessed him in everything he did. ² He said to his oldest servant, who was in charge of all that he had, “Place your hand between my thighs^[a] and make a vow. ³ I want you to make a vow in the name of the Lord, the God of heaven and earth, that you will not choose a wife for my son from the people here in Canaan. ⁴ You must go back to the country where I was born and get a wife for my son Isaac from among my relatives.”

⁵ But the servant asked, “What if the young woman will not leave home to come with me to this land? Shall I send your son back to the land you came from?”

⁶ Abraham answered, “Make sure that you don't send my son back there! ⁷ The Lord, the God of heaven, brought me from the home of my father and from the land of my relatives, and he solemnly promised me that he would give this land to my descendants. He will send his angel before you, so that you can get a wife there for my son. ⁸ If the young woman is not willing to come with you, you will be free from this promise. But you must not under any circumstances take my son back there.” ⁹ So the servant put his hand between the thighs of Abraham, his master, and made a vow to do what Abraham had asked.

¹⁰ The servant, who was in charge of Abraham's property, took ten of his master's camels and went to the city where Nahor had lived in northern Mesopotamia. ¹¹ When he arrived, he made the camels kneel down at the well outside the city. It was late afternoon, the time when women came out to get water. ¹² He prayed, “Lord, God of my master Abraham, give me success today and keep your promise to my master. ¹³ Here I am at the well where the young women of the city will be coming to get water. ¹⁴ I will say to one of them, ‘Please, lower your jar and let me have a drink.’ If she says, ‘Drink, and I will also bring water for your camels,’ may she be the one that you have chosen for your servant Isaac. If this happens, I will know that you have kept your promise to my master.”

¹⁵ Before he had finished praying, Rebecca arrived with a water jar on her shoulder. She was the daughter of Bethuel, who was the son of Abraham's brother Nahor and his wife Milcah. ¹⁶ She was a very beautiful young woman and still a virgin. She went down to the well, filled her jar, and came back. ¹⁷ The servant ran to meet her and said, “Please give me a drink of water from your jar.”

¹⁸ She said, “Drink, sir,” and quickly lowered her jar from her shoulder and held it while he drank. ¹⁹ When he had finished, she said, “I will also bring water for your camels and let them have all they want.” ²⁰ She quickly emptied her jar into the animals' drinking trough and ran to the well to get more water, until she had watered all his camels. ²¹ The man kept watching her in silence, to see if the Lord had given him success.

The Jews and the Law

¹⁷ What about you? You call yourself a Jew; you depend on the Law and boast about God; ¹⁸ you know what God wants you to do, and you have learned from the Law to choose what is right; ¹⁹ you are sure that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in darkness, ²⁰ an instructor for the foolish, and a teacher for the ignorant. You are certain that in the Law you have the full content of knowledge and of truth. ²¹ You teach others—why don't you teach yourself? You preach, “Do not steal”—but do you yourself steal? ²² You say, “Do not commit adultery”—but do you commit adultery? You detest idols—but do you rob temples? ²³ You boast about having God's law—but do you bring shame on God by breaking his law? ^24 (A)The scripture says, “Because of you Jews, the Gentiles speak evil of God.”

²⁵ If you obey the Law, your circumcision is of value; but if you disobey the Law, you might as well never have been circumcised. ²⁶ If the Gentile, who is not circumcised, obeys the commands of the Law, will not God regard him as though he were circumcised? ²⁷ And so you Jews will be condemned by the Gentiles because you break the Law, even though you have it written down and are circumcised; but they obey the Law, even though they are not physically circumcised. ²⁸ After all, who is a real Jew, truly circumcised? It is not the man who is a Jew on the outside, whose circumcision is a physical thing. ^29 (B)Rather, the real Jew is the person who is a Jew on the inside, that is, whose heart has been circumcised, and this is the work of God's Spirit, not of the written Law. Such a person receives praise from God, not from human beings.