The Texts for March 15th, 2015, the Fourth Sunday in Lent

First Reading: Numbers 21:4–9

⁴From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way.  ⁵The people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food."  ⁶Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died.  ⁷The people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people.  ⁸And the LORD said to Moses, "Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live."  ⁹So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

Second Reading: Ephesians 2:1–10

You were dead through the trespasses and sins  ²in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.  ³All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.  ⁴But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us  ⁵even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved —  ⁶and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,  ⁷so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.  ⁸For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God —  ⁹not the result of works, so that no one may boast.  ¹⁰For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

Gospel: John 3:14–21

¹⁴And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,  ¹⁵that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

¹⁶For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

¹⁷Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  ¹⁸Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.  ¹⁹And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.  ²⁰For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed.  ²¹But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God."