Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Faith that looks beyond death

¹³ All these people died in faith. They hadn’t received the promise, but they had seen it from far off, and had greeted it, and had recognized that they were strangers and wanderers in the land. ¹⁴ People who say that sort of thing, you see, make it clear that they are looking for a homeland. ¹⁵ Had they been thinking of the place from which they had set out, they would have had plenty of opportunity to go back to it. ¹⁶ But as it was they were longing for a better place, a heavenly one. That’s why God is not ashamed to be called “their God,” since he has prepared a city for them.

¹⁷ It was by faith that Abraham, when he was put to the test, offered up Isaac; yes, Abraham, who had received the promise, was in the very act of offering up his only son, ¹⁸ the one about whom it had been said that “In Isaac shall your family be named.” ¹⁹ He reckoned that God was capable of raising him even from the dead; and, in one sense, he did indeed receive him back from there.

²⁰ It was by faith in the things that were to come that Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau. ²¹ It was by faith that, when Jacob was dying, he blessed the two sons of Joseph, and “worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.” ²² It was by faith that, when Joseph was coming to the end, he spoke about the exodus of the children of Israel, and gave instructions concerning his own bones.