Jesus and His Family. 31m His mother and his brothers arrived. Standing outside they sent word to him and called him. 32A crowd seated around him told him, “Your mother and your brothers* [and your sisters] are outside asking for you.” 33But he said to them in reply, “Who are my mother and [my] brothers?” 34And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. 35[For] whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
8When they heard the sound of the LORD God walking about in the garden at the breezy time of the day,* the man and his wife hid themselves from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.d 9The LORD God then called to the man and asked him: Where are you? 10He answered, “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid.” 11Then God asked: Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat? 12The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it.” 13The LORD God then asked the woman: What is this you have done? The woman answered, “The snake tricked me, so I ate it.”e
14Then the LORD God said to the snake:
Because you have done this,
cursed are you
among all the animals, tame or wild;
On your belly you shall crawl,
and dust you shall eat
15I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
They will strike at your head,
1Ma, b How beautiful you are, my friend,
how beautiful you are!
Your eyes are doves
behind your veil.
Your hair is like a flock of goats
streaming down Mount Gilead.*
2Your teeth* are like a flock of ewes to be shorn,
that come up from the washing,
All of them big with twins,
none of them barren.
3Like a scarlet strand, your lips,
and your mouth—lovely!
Like pomegranate* halves, your cheeks
behind your veil.
9With myrrh, aloes, and cassia
your robes are fragrant.
From ivory-paneled palaces*
stringed instruments bring you joy.
10Daughters of kings are your lovely wives;
a princess arrayed in Ophir’s gold*
comes to stand at your right hand.
11Listen, my daughter, and understand;
pay me careful heed.
Forget your people and your father’s house,*
12that the king might desire your beauty.
He is your lord;
13dhonor him, daughter of Tyre.
Then the richest of the people
will seek your favor with gifts.
14All glorious is the king’s daughter as she enters,e
her raiment threaded with gold;
15In embroidered apparel she is led to the king.
The maids of her train are presented to the king.
Crisis in Judah. 1In the days of Ahaz,* king of Judah, son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah, king of Israel, son of Remaliah, went up to attack Jerusalem, but they were not able to conquer it.a 2When word came to the house of David that Aram had allied itself with Ephraim, the heart of the king and heart of the people trembled, as the trees of the forest tremble in the wind.
3Then the LORD said to Isaiah: Go out to meet Ahaz, you and your son Shear-jashub,* at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, on the highway to the fuller’s field, 4and say to him: Take care you remain calm and do not fear; do not let your courage fail before these two stumps of smoldering brands,b the blazing anger of Rezin and the Arameans and of the son of Remaliah— 5because Aram, with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has planned* evil against you. They say, 6“Let us go up against Judah, tear it apart, make it our own by force, and appoint the son of Tabeel* king there.”
7Thus says the Lord GOD:
It shall not stand, it shall not be!c
8* The head of Aram is Damascus,
and the head of Damascus is Rezin;
9The head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah.
Within sixty-five years,
Ephraim shall be crushed, no longer a nation.
Unless your faith is firm,
you shall not be firm!d
Emmanuel. 10Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz: 11Ask for a sign from the LORD, your God; let it be deep as Sheol, or high as the sky!* 12But Ahaz answered, “I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!”* 13Then he said: Listen, house of David! Is it not enough that you weary human beings? Must you also weary my God? 14Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign;* the young woman, pregnant and about to bear a son, shall name him Emmanuel. 15Curds and honey* he will eat so that he may learn to reject evil and choose good;
The Woman and the Dragon. 1* A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman* clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.a 2She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth.* 3Then another sign appeared in the sky; it was a huge red dragon,* with seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven diadems.b 4Its tail swept away a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them down to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman about to give birth, to devour her child when she gave birth.c 5She gave birth to a son, a male child, destined to rule all the nations with an iron rod.* Her child was caught up to God and his throne.d 6The woman herself fled into the desert where she had a place prepared by God, that there she might be taken care of for twelve hundred and sixty days.*
7* Then war broke out in heaven; Michael* and his angels battled against the dragon. The dragon and its angels fought back, 8but they did not prevail and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9The huge dragon, the ancient serpent,* who is called the Devil and Satan, who deceived the whole world, was thrown down to earth, and its angels were thrown down with it.e
10Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have salvation and power come,
and the kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Anointed.
For the accuser* of our brothers is cast out,
who accuses them before our God day and night.
11They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
love for life did not deter them from death.
12Therefore, rejoice, you heavens,
and you who dwell in them.
But woe to you, earth and sea,
for the Devil has come down to you in great fury,
for he knows he has but a short time.”
Freedom from Sin; Life in God. 1* What then shall we say? Shall we persist in sin that grace may abound? Of course not!a 2How can we who died to sin yet live in it?b 3Or are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?c 4We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.d
5For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection.e 6We know that our old self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be done away with, that we might no longer be in slavery to sin.f 7For a dead person has been absolved from sin. 8If, then, we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.g 9We know that Christ, raised from the dead, dies no more; death no longer has power over him.h 10As to his death, he died to sin once and for all; as to his life, he lives for God.i 11Consequently, you too must think of yourselves as [being] dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.j