◀ All Reading Plans / Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous) / Psalm 122 (Gladness in God’s house); Genesis 6:1-10 (Humankind’s wickedness Noah’s righteousness); Hebrews 11:1-7 (Noah acts in faith) (New American Bible (Revised Edition))

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Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Daily Bible readings that follow the church liturgical year, with sequential stories told across multiple weeks.

Duration: 1245 days

Psalm 122

Psalm 122^[a]

A Pilgrim’s Prayer for Jerusalem

¹A song of ascents. Of David.

I

I rejoiced when they said to me,
    “Let us go to the house of the Lord.”^(A)
²And now our feet are standing
    within your gates, Jerusalem.
³Jerusalem, built as a city,
    walled round about.^[b]^(B)
⁴There the tribes go up,
    the tribes of the Lord,
As it was decreed for Israel,
    to give thanks to the name of the Lord.^(C)
⁵There are the thrones of justice,
    the thrones of the house of David.

II

⁶For the peace of Jerusalem pray:
    “May those who love you prosper!
⁷May peace be within your ramparts,
    prosperity within your towers.”^(D)
⁸For the sake of my brothers and friends I say,
    “Peace be with you.”^(E)
⁹For the sake of the house of the Lord, our God,
    I pray for your good.

Genesis 6:1-10

Chapter 6

Origin of the Nephilim.^[a] ¹When human beings began to grow numerous on the earth and daughters were born to them, ²the sons of God^[b] saw how beautiful the daughters of human beings were, and so they took for their wives whomever they pleased.^(A) ³Then the Lord said: My spirit shall not remain in human beings forever, because they are only flesh. Their days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years.

⁴The Nephilim appeared on earth in those days, as well as later,^[c] after the sons of God had intercourse with the daughters of human beings, who bore them sons. They were the heroes of old, the men of renown.^(B)

Warning of the Flood. ⁵^[d]When the Lord saw how great the wickedness of human beings was on earth, and how every desire that their heart conceived was always nothing but evil,^(C) ⁶the Lord regretted making human beings on the earth, and his heart was grieved.^[e]

⁷So the Lord said: I will wipe out from the earth the human beings I have created, and not only the human beings, but also the animals and the crawling things and the birds of the air, for I regret that I made them.^[f] ⁸But Noah found favor with the Lord.

⁹These are the descendants of Noah. Noah was a righteous man and blameless in his generation;^(D) Noah walked with God. ¹⁰Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Footnotes

6:1–4 These enigmatic verses are a transition between the expansion of the human race illustrated in the genealogy of chap. 5 and the flood depicted in chaps. 6–9. The text, apparently alluding to an old legend, shares a common ancient view that the heavenly world was populated by a multitude of beings, some of whom were wicked and rebellious. It is incorporated here, not only in order to account for the prehistoric giants, whom the Israelites called the Nephilim, but also to introduce the story of the flood with a moral orientation—the constantly increasing wickedness of humanity. This increasing wickedness leads God to reduce the human life span imposed on the first couple. As the ages in the preceding genealogy show, life spans had been exceptionally long in the early period, but God further reduces them to something near the ordinary life span.
6:2 The sons of God: other heavenly beings. See note on 1:26.
6:4 As well as later: the belief was common that human beings of gigantic stature once lived on earth. In some cultures, such heroes could make positive contributions, but the Bible generally regards them in a negative light (cf. Nm 13:33; Ez 32:27). The point here is that even these heroes, filled with vitality from their semi-divine origin, come under God’s decree in v. 3.
6:5–8:22 The story of the great flood is commonly regarded as a composite narrative based on separate sources woven together. To the Yahwist source, with some later editorial additions, are usually assigned 6:5–8; 7:1–5, 7–10, 12, 16b, 17b, 22–23; 8:2b–3a, 6–12, 13b, 20–22. The other sections are usually attributed to the Priestly writer. There are differences between the two sources: the Priestly source has two pairs of every animal, whereas the Yahwist source has seven pairs of clean animals and two pairs of unclean; the floodwater in the Priestly source is the waters under and over the earth that burst forth, whereas in the Yahwist source the floodwater is the rain lasting forty days and nights. In spite of many obvious discrepancies in these two sources, one should read the story as a coherent narrative. The biblical story ultimately draws upon an ancient Mesopotamian tradition of a great flood, preserved in the Sumerian flood story, the eleventh tablet of the Gilgamesh Epic, and (embedded in a longer creation story) the Atrahasis Epic.
6:6 His heart was grieved: the expression can be misleading in English, for “heart” in Hebrew is the seat of memory and judgment rather than emotion. The phrase is actually parallel to the first half of the sentence (“the Lord regretted…”).
6:7 Human beings are an essential part of their environment, which includes all living things. In the new beginning after the flood, God makes a covenant with human beings and every living creature (9:9–10). The same close link between human beings and nature is found elsewhere in the Bible; e.g., in Is 35, God’s healing transforms human beings along with their physical environment, and in Rom 8:19–23, all creation, not merely human beings, groans in labor pains awaiting the salvation of God.

Hebrews 11:1-7

V. Examples, Discipline, Disobedience

Chapter 11^[a]

Faith of the Ancients. ¹Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence^[b] of things not seen.^(A) ²Because of it the ancients were well attested. ³^(B)By faith we understand that the universe was ordered by the word of God,^[c] so that what is visible came into being through the invisible. ⁴^[d]By faith Abel offered to God a sacrifice greater than Cain’s. Through this he was attested to be righteous, God bearing witness to his gifts, and through this, though dead, he still speaks.^(C) ⁵By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and “he was found no more because God had taken him.” Before he was taken up, he was attested to have pleased God.^(D) ⁶^[e]But without faith it is impossible to please him,^(E) for anyone who approaches God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. ⁷By faith Noah, warned about what was not yet seen, with reverence built an ark for the salvation of his household. Through this he condemned the world and inherited the righteousness that comes through faith.^(F)

Footnotes

11:1–40 This chapter draws upon the people and events of the Old Testament to paint an inspiring portrait of religious faith, firm and unyielding in the face of any obstacles that confront it. These pages rank among the most eloquent and lofty to be found in the Bible. They expand the theme announced in Hb 6:12, to which the author now returns (Hb 10:39). The material of this chapter is developed chronologically. Hb 11:3–7 draw upon the first nine chapters of Genesis (Gn 1–9); Hb 11:8–22, upon the period of the patriarchs; Hb 11:23–31, upon the time of Moses; Hb 11:32–38, upon the history of the judges, the prophets, and the Maccabean martyrs. The author gives the most extensive description of faith provided in the New Testament, though his interest does not lie in a technical, theological definition. In view of the needs of his audience he describes what authentic faith does, not what it is in itself. Through faith God guarantees the blessings to be hoped for from him, providing evidence in the gift of faith that what he promises will eventually come to pass (Hb 11:1). Because they accepted in faith God’s guarantee of the future, the biblical personages discussed in Hb 11:3–38 were themselves commended by God (Hb 11:2). Christians have even greater reason to remain firm in faith since they, unlike the Old Testament men and women of faith, have perceived the beginning of God’s fulfillment of his messianic promises (Hb 11:39–40).
11:1 Faith is the realization…evidence: the author is not attempting a precise definition. There is dispute about the meaning of the Greek words hypostasis and elenchos, here translated realization and evidence, respectively. Hypostasis usually means “substance,” “being” (as translated in Hb 1:3), or “reality” (as translated in Hb 3:14); here it connotes something more subjective, and so realization has been chosen rather than “assurance” (RSV). Elenchos, usually “proof,” is used here in an objective sense and so translated evidence rather than the transferred sense of “(inner) conviction” (RSV).
11:3 By faith…God: this verse does not speak of the faith of the Old Testament men and women but is in the first person plural. Hence it seems out of place in the sequence of thought.
11:4 The “Praise of the Ancestors” in Sir 44:1–50:21 gives a similar list of heroes. The Cain and Abel narrative in Gn 4:1–16 does not mention Abel’s faith. It says, however, that God “looked with favor on Abel and his offering” (Gn 4:4); in view of Hb 11:6 the author probably understood God’s favor to have been activated by Abel’s faith. Though dead, he still speaks: possibly because his blood “cries out to me from the soil” (Gn 4:10), but more probably a way of saying that the repeated story of Abel provides ongoing witness to faith.
11:6 One must believe not only that God exists but that he is concerned about human conduct; the Old Testament defines folly as the denial of this truth; cf. Ps 52:2.

New American Bible (Revised Edition) (NABRE)

Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 122^[a]

A Pilgrim’s Prayer for Jerusalem

I

II

Footnotes

Cross references

Chapter 6

Footnotes

Cross references

V. Examples, Discipline, Disobedience

Chapter 11^[a]

Footnotes

Cross references

Use the calendar to view readings from this devotional.

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Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 122[a]

A Pilgrim’s Prayer for Jerusalem

I

II

Footnotes

Cross references

Chapter 6

Footnotes

Cross references

V. Examples, Discipline, Disobedience

Chapter 11[a]

Footnotes

Cross references

Psalm 122^[a]

Chapter 11^[a]