Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

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

He said, “Here I am.”

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

³ Abraham rose early in the morning, and saddled his donkey; and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son. He split the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went to the place of which God had told him. ⁴ On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place far off. ⁵ Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey. The boy and I will go over there. We will worship, and come back to you.” ⁶ Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son. He took in his hand the fire and the knife. They both went together. ⁷ Isaac spoke to Abraham his father, and said, “My father?”

He said, “Here I am, my son.”

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

⁸ Abraham said, “God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.” So they both went together. ⁹ They came to the place which God had told him of. Abraham built the altar there, and laid the wood in order, bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar, on the wood. ¹⁰ Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife to kill his son.

¹¹ Yahweh’s angel called to him out of the sky, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!”

He said, “Here I am.”

¹² He said, “Don’t lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

¹³ Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and saw that behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴ Abraham called the name of that place “Yahweh Will Provide”.^[a] As it is said to this day, “On Yahweh’s mountain, it will be provided.”

For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David.

¹² Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ¹³ Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin will not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! ¹⁶ Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered. ¹⁸ Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness.

¹⁹ I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh; for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification. ²⁰ For when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. ²¹ What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. ²² But now, being made free from sin and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification and the result of eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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 will receive a prophet’s reward. He who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. ⁴² Whoever gives one of these little ones just a cup of cold water to drink in the name of a disciple, most certainly I tell you, he will in no way lose his reward.”