Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

The kindness that imitates God himself

²⁵ Put away lies, then. “Each of you, speak the truth with your neighbor,” because we are members of one another. ²⁶ “Be angry, but don’t sin”; don’t let the sun go down on you while you’re angry, ²⁷ and don’t leave any loophole for the devil. ²⁸ The thief shouldn’t steal any longer, but should rather get on with some honest manual work, so as to be able to share with people in need.

²⁹ Don’t let any unwholesome words escape your lips. Instead, say whatever is good and will be useful in building people up, so that you will give grace to those who listen.

³⁰ And don’t disappoint God’s holy spirit—the spirit who put God’s mark on you to identify you on the day of freedom. ³¹ All bitterness and rage, all anger and yelling, and all blasphemy—put it all away from you, with all wickedness. ³² Instead, be kind to one another, cherish tender feelings for each other, forgive one another, just as God forgave you in the Messiah.

5 So you should be imitators of God, like dear children. ² Conduct yourselves in love, just as the Messiah loved us, and gave himself for us, as a sweet-smelling offering and sacrifice to God.

³⁵ “I am the bread of life,” replied Jesus. “Anyone who comes to me will never be hungry! Anyone who believes in me will never be thirsty!”

⁴¹ The Judaeans then grumbled about him because he had said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.”

⁴² “Isn’t this Jesus, Joseph’s son?” they said. “We know his father and mother, don’t we? So how can he say ‘I came down from heaven’?”

⁴³ “Don’t grumble among yourselves,” answered Jesus. ⁴⁴ “No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws them—and I will raise them up on the last day. ⁴⁵ It is written in the prophets, ‘They shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who listens to what comes from the father, and learns from it, comes to me. ⁴⁶ Not that anyone has seen the father except the one who is from God; he has seen the father.”

Eating and drinking the son of man

⁴⁷ “I’m telling you the solemn truth,” Jesus went on. “Anyone who believes in me has the life of God’s coming age. ⁴⁸ I am the bread of life. ⁴⁹ Your ancestors in the wilderness ate the manna, and they died. ⁵⁰ This is the bread which comes down from heaven, so that people can eat it and not die. ⁵¹ I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats from this bread, they will live forever. And the bread which I shall give is my flesh, given for the life of the world.”