Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

¹⁵ on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month of the second year that Darius was emperor.

The Splendor of the New Temple

2 On the twenty-first day of the seventh month of that same year, the Lord spoke again through the prophet Haggai. ² He told Haggai to speak to Zerubbabel, the governor of Judah, to Joshua, the High Priest, and to the people, and to say to them, ^3 (A)“Is there anyone among you who can still remember how splendid the Temple used to be? How does it look to you now? It must seem like nothing at all. ⁴ But now don't be discouraged, any of you. Do the work, for I am with you. ^5 (B)When you came out of Egypt, I promised that I would always be with you. I am still with you, so do not be afraid.

^6 (C)“Before long I will shake heaven and earth, land and sea. ⁷ I will overthrow all the nations, and their treasures will be brought here, and the Temple will be filled with wealth. ⁸ All the silver and gold of the world is mine. ⁹ The new Temple will be more splendid than the old one, and there I will give my people prosperity and peace.” The Lord Almighty has spoken.

A Hymn of Praise^[a]

God the Ruler of the World^[a]

The Wicked One

2 ^(A)Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to be with him: I beg you, my friends, ² not to be so easily confused in your thinking or upset by the claim that the Day of the Lord has come. Perhaps it is thought that we said this while prophesying or preaching, or that we wrote it in a letter. ³ Do not let anyone deceive you in any way. For the Day will not come until the final Rebellion takes place and the Wicked One appears, who is destined to hell. ^4 (B)He will oppose every so-called god or object of worship and will put himself above them all. He will even go in and sit down in God's Temple and claim to be God.

⁵ Don't you remember? I told you all this while I was with you.

You Are Chosen for Salvation

¹³ We must thank God at all times for you, friends, you whom the Lord loves. For God chose you as the first^[a] to be saved by the Spirit's power to make you his holy people and by your faith in the truth. ¹⁴ God called you to this through the Good News we preached to you; he called you to possess your share of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. ¹⁵ So then, our friends, stand firm and hold on to those truths which we taught you, both in our preaching and in our letter.

¹⁶ May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and in his grace gave us unfailing courage and a firm hope, ¹⁷ encourage you and strengthen you to always do and say what is good.

The Question about Rising from Death^(A)

^27 (B)Then some Sadducees, who say that people will not rise from death, came to Jesus and said, ^28 (C)“Teacher, Moses wrote this law for us: ‘If a man dies and leaves a wife but no children, that man's brother must marry the widow so that they can have children who will be considered the dead man's children.’ ²⁹ Once there were seven brothers; the oldest got married and died without having children. ³⁰ Then the second one married the woman, ³¹ and then the third. The same thing happened to all seven—they died without having children. ³² Last of all, the woman died. ³³ Now, on the day when the dead rise to life, whose wife will she be? All seven of them had married her.”

³⁴ Jesus answered them, “The men and women of this age marry, ³⁵ but the men and women who are worthy to rise from death and live in the age to come will not then marry. ³⁶ They will be like angels and cannot die. They are the children of God, because they have risen from death. ^37 (D)And Moses clearly proves that the dead are raised to life. In the passage about the burning bush he speaks of the Lord as ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ ³⁸ He is the God of the living, not of the dead, for to him all are alive.”