Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Thanksgiving for Rescue from Death.

A Bride for Isaac

24 Now Abraham was old, [well] advanced in age; and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. ² Abraham said to his servant [Eliezer of Damascus], the oldest of his household, who had charge over all that Abraham owned, “Please, put your hand under my thigh [as is customary for affirming a solemn oath],^{(A) 3} and I will make you swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I live, ⁴ but you will [instead] go to my [former] country (Mesopotamia) and to my relatives, and take a wife for my son Isaac [the heir of the covenant promise].” ⁵ The servant said to him, “Suppose the woman will not be willing to follow me back to this country; should I take your son back to the country from which you came?” ⁶ Abraham said to him, “See to it that you do not take my son back there! ⁷ The Lord, the God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house, from the land of my family and my birth, who spoke to me and swore to me, saying, ‘To your descendants I will give this land’—He will send His angel before you [to guide you], and you will take a wife from there for my son [and bring her here]. ⁸ If the woman is not willing to follow you [to this land], then you will be free from this my oath and blameless; only you must never take my son back there.” ⁹ So the servant put his hand under the thigh of Abraham his master, and swore to him concerning this matter.

³⁵ “This Moses whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the very one whom God sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer, with the [protecting and helping] hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the thorn bush.^{(A) 36} This man led them out [of Egypt] after performing wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years.^{(B) 37} This is the Moses who said to the children of Israel, ‘God will raise up for you a Prophet ^[a]like me from your countrymen.’^{(C) 38} This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and who was with our fathers; and he received living oracles [divine words that still live] to be handed down to you.^{(D) 39} Our fathers were unwilling to be subject to him [and refused to listen to him]. They rejected him, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.^{(E) 40} They said to Aaron, ‘Make for us gods who will go before us; for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has happened to him.’^{(F) 41} In those days they made a calf and brought a sacrifice to the idol, and rejoiced and celebrated over the works of their hands.^{(G) 42} But God turned away [from them] and handed them over to serve the ^[b]host of heaven. As it is written and forever remains written in the book of the prophets, ‘It was not [really] to Me that you offered victims and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness, was it, O house of Israel?^{(H) 43} You also took along the tabernacle (portable temple) of Moloch and the star of the god Rompha, the images which you made to worship; and I will remove you beyond Babylon [carrying you away into exile].’^(I)