Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

The Sacrifice of Isaac

22 After these things God tested Abraham and said to him, “Abraham!”

And he said, “Here I am.”

² Then He said, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”

³ So Abraham rose up early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place that God had told him. ⁴ Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from a distance. ⁵ Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there and worship and then return to you.”

⁶ So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand and the knife. So the two of them walked on together. ⁷ But Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!”

And he said, “Here I am, my son.”

Then he said, “Here is the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”

⁸ Abraham said, “My son, God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” So the two of them went together.

⁹ Then they came to the place that God had told him. So Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood; and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar, on the wood. ¹⁰ Then Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. ¹¹ But the angel of the Lord called to him out of heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!”

And he said, “Here I am.”

¹² Then He said, “Do not lay your hands on the boy or do anything to him, because now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your only son from Me.”

¹³ Then Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns. So Abraham went and took the ram and offered him up as a burnt offering in the place of his son. ¹⁴ Abraham called the name of that place The Lord Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the Lord it will be provided.”

Psalm 13

For the Music Director. A Psalm of David.

¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ¹³ Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but yield yourselves to God, as those who are alive from the dead, and your bodies to God as instruments of righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace.

Slaves of Righteousness

¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? God forbid! ¹⁶ Do you not know that to whom you yield yourselves as slaves to obey, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God, for you were slaves of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of teaching to which you were entrusted, ¹⁸ and having been freed from sin, you became the slaves of righteousness.

¹⁹ I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for just as you have yielded your members as slaves to impurity and iniquity leading to more iniquity, even so now yield your members as slaves to righteousness unto holiness. ²⁰ For when you were the slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. ²¹ What fruit did you have then from the things of which you are now ashamed? The result of those things is death. ²² But now, having been freed from sin and having become slaves of God, you have fruit unto holiness, and the end is eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Rewards^(A)

⁴⁰ “He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. ⁴¹ He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. ⁴² And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple, truly I tell you, he shall in no way lose his reward.”