Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

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God’s covenant with Abraham

17 When Abram was 99 years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am El Shaddai.^[a] Walk with me and be trustworthy. ² I will make a covenant between us and I will give you many, many descendants.” ³ Abram fell on his face, and God said to him, ⁴ “But me, my covenant is with you; you will be the ancestor of many nations. ⁵ And because I have made you the ancestor of many nations, your name will no longer be Abram^[b] but Abraham.^{[c] 6} I will make you very fertile. I will produce nations from you, and kings will come from you. ⁷ I will set up my covenant with you and your descendants after you in every generation as an enduring covenant. I will be your God and your descendants’ God after you. ⁸ I will give you and your descendants the land in which you are immigrants, the whole land of Canaan, as an enduring possession. And I will be their God.”

⁹ God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants in every generation. ¹⁰ This is my covenant that you and your descendants must keep: Circumcise every male. ¹¹ You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it will be a symbol of the covenant between us. ¹² On the eighth day after birth, every male in every generation must be circumcised, including those who are not your own children: those born in your household and those purchased with silver from foreigners. ¹³ Be sure you circumcise those born in your household and those purchased with your silver. Your flesh will embody my covenant as an enduring covenant. ¹⁴ Any uncircumcised male whose flesh of his foreskin remains uncircumcised will be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant.”

¹⁵ God said to Abraham, “As for your wife Sarai, you will no longer call her Sarai. Her name will now be Sarah. ¹⁶ I will bless her and even give you a son from her. I will bless her so that she will become nations, and kings of peoples will come from her.”

¹⁷ Abraham fell on his face and laughed. He said to himself, Can a 100-year-old man become a father, or Sarah, a 90-year-old woman, have a child? ¹⁸ To God Abraham said, “If only you would accept Ishmael!”

¹⁹ But God said, “No, your wife Sarah will give birth to a son for you, and you will name him Isaac.^[d] I will set up my covenant with him and with his descendants after him as an enduring covenant. ²⁰ As for Ishmael, I’ve heard your request. I will bless him and make him fertile and give him many, many descendants. He will be the ancestor of twelve tribal leaders, and I will make a great nation of him. ²¹ But I will set up my covenant with Isaac, who will be born to Sarah at this time next year.” ²² When God finished speaking to him, God ascended, leaving Abraham alone.

²³ Abraham took his son Ishmael, all those born in his household, and all those purchased with his silver—that is, every male in Abraham’s household—and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that same day, just as God had told him to do. ²⁴ Abraham was 99 years old when he circumcised the flesh of his foreskin, ²⁵ and his son Ishmael was 13 years old when the flesh of his foreskin was circumcised. ²⁶ That same day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised. ²⁷ All the men of his household, those born in his household and those purchased with silver from foreigners, were circumcised with him.

Our acts of service and sacrifice

13 Keep loving each other like family. ² Don’t neglect to open up your homes to guests, because by doing this some have been hosts to angels without knowing it. ³ Remember prisoners as if you were in prison with them, and people who are mistreated as if you were in their place. ⁴ Marriage must be honored in every respect, with no cheating on the relationship, because God will judge the sexually immoral person and the person who commits adultery. ⁵ Your way of life should be free from the love of money, and you should be content with what you have. After all, he has said, I will never leave you or abandon you.^{[a] 6} This is why we can confidently say,

⁷ Remember your leaders who spoke God’s word to you. Imitate their faith as you consider the way their lives turned out. ⁸ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever!

⁹ Don’t be misled by the many strange teachings out there. It’s a good thing for the heart to be strengthened by grace rather than by food. Food doesn’t help those who live in this context. ¹⁰ We have an altar, and those who serve as priests in the meeting tent don’t have the right to eat from it. ¹¹ The blood of the animals is carried into the holy of holies by the high priest as an offering for sin, and their bodies are burned outside the camp. ¹² And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy with his own blood.

¹³ So now, let’s go to him outside the camp, bearing his shame. ¹⁴ We don’t have a permanent city here, but rather we are looking for the city that is still to come.

¹⁵ So let’s continually offer up a sacrifice of praise through him, which is the fruit from our lips that confess his name. ¹⁶ Don’t forget to do good and to share what you have because God is pleased with these kinds of sacrifices.