Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Tower of Babel

11 Now the entire earth had the same language with the same vocabulary. ² When they traveled eastward, they found a valley-plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. ³ They said to one another, “Come! Let’s make bricks and bake them until they’re hard.” So they used bricks for stone, and tar for mortar.

⁴ Then they said, “Come! Let’s build ourselves a city, with a tower whose top reaches into heaven. So let’s make a name for ourselves, or else we will be scattered over the face of the whole land.”

⁵ Then Adonai came down to see the city and the tower that the sons of man had built. ⁶ Adonai said, “Look, the people are one and all of them have the same language. So this is what they have begun to do. Now, nothing they plan to do will be impossible. ⁷ Come! Let Us go down and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand each other’s language.”

⁸ So Adonai scattered them from there over the face of the entire land, and they stopped building the city. ⁹ This is why it is named Babel, because Adonai confused the languages of the entire world there, and from there Adonai scattered them over the face of the entire world.

¹² For just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of the body—though many—are one body, so also is Messiah. ¹³ For in one Ruach we were all immersed into one body—whether Jewish or Greek, slave or free—and all were made to drink of one Ruach.

¹⁴ For the body is not one part, but many. ¹⁵ If the foot says, “Since I’m not a hand, I’m not part of the body,” is it therefore not part of the body? ¹⁶ And if the ear says, “Since I’m not an eye, I’m not part of the body,” is it for this reason any less part of the body? ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But now God has placed the parts—each one of them—in the body just as He desired. ¹⁹ If they were all one part, where would the body be? ²⁰ But now there are many parts, yet one body.

²¹ The eye cannot tell the hand, “I don’t need you!” or in turn the head to the feet, “I don’t need you!” ²² On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be less important are indispensable. ²³ Those parts of the body that we think to be less honorable, we clothe with greater honor; and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty; ²⁴ but our presentable parts have no such need. Rather God assembled the body, giving more honor to those who are lacking, ²⁵ so that there may be no division in the body, but so that the parts may have the same care for one another. ²⁶ If one part suffers, all the parts suffer together. If one part is honored, all the parts rejoice together.

²⁷ Now you are the body of Messiah, and members individually.