Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

His Chesed Endures Forever

Psalm 118

Parashat Bereshit

Creation in Six Days

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ^{[a] 2} Now the earth was chaos and waste, darkness was on the surface of the deep, and the Ruach Elohim was hovering upon the surface of the water.^[b]

³ Then God said, “Let there be light!” and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good. So God distinguished the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light “day,” and the darkness He called “night.” So there was evening and there was morning—one day.

⁶ Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the water! Let it be for separating water from water.” ⁷ So God made the expanse and it separated the water that was below the expanse from the water that was over the expanse. And it happened so. ⁸ God called the expanse “sky.” So there was evening and there was morning—a second day. ⁹ Then God said, “Let the water below the sky be gathered to one place. Let the dry ground appear.” And it happened so. ¹⁰ God called the dry ground “land,” and the collection of the water He called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

¹¹ Then God said, “Let the land sprout grass, green plants yielding seed, fruit trees making fruit, each according to its species with seed in it, upon the land.” And it happened so. ¹² The land brought forth grass, green plants yielding seed, each according to its species, and trees making fruit with the seed in it, each according to its species. And God saw that it was good. ¹³ So there was evening and there was morning—a third day.

¹⁴ Then God said, “Let lights in the expanse of the sky be for separating the day from the night. They will be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. ¹⁵ They will be for lights in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the land.” And it happened so. ¹⁶ Then God made the two great lights—the greater light for dominion over the day, and the lesser light as well as the stars for dominion over the night. ¹⁷ God set them in the expanse of the sky to shine on the land ¹⁸ and to have dominion over the day and over the night and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. ¹⁹ So there was evening and there was morning—a fourth day.

³⁵ But someone will say, “How are the dead raised?”^[a] and, “With what kind of body do they come?” ³⁶ Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. ³⁷ As for what you sow—you are not sowing the body that will be, but a bare seed, maybe of wheat or something else. ³⁸ But God gives it a body just as He planned, and to each of the seeds a body of its own. ³⁹ All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of humans, another flesh of animals, another of birds, and another of fish. ⁴⁰ There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing while the earthly is another. ⁴¹ There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵ So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.”^[b] The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶ However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. ⁴⁷ The first man is of the earth, made of dust; the second man is from heaven.