Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

¹⁵ So take special care how you conduct yourselves. Don’t be unwise, but be wise. ¹⁶ Make use of any opportunity you have, because these are wicked times we live in. ¹⁷ So don’t be foolish; rather, understand what the Lord’s will is. ¹⁸ And don’t get drunk with wine; that way lies dissipation. Rather, be filled with the spirit! ¹⁹ Speak to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and chanting in your heart to the Lord, ²⁰ always giving thanks for everything to God the father in the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah.

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.”

⁵² This caused a squabble among the Judaeans.

“How can this fellow give us his flesh to eat?” they asked.

⁵³ “I’m telling you the solemn truth,” Jesus replied. “If you don’t eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. ⁵⁴ Anyone who feasts upon my flesh and drinks my blood has the life of God’s coming age, and I will raise them up on the last day. ⁵⁵ My flesh is true food, you see, and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶ Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I remain in them. ⁵⁷ Just as the living father sent me, and I live because of the father, so the one who eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread which came down from heaven; it isn’t like the bread which the ancestors ate, and died. The one who eats this bread will share the life of God’s new age.”