Tuesday 25 February 2014 DAILY LECTIONARY

Tue Feb 25 01:00:07 EST 2014

Tuesday 25 February 2014 
DAILY LECTIONARY

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Proverbs 4:1-27

Listen, children, to a father’s instruction,
   and be attentive, that you may gain* insight; 
for I give you good precepts:
   do not forsake my teaching. 
When I was a son with my father,
   tender, and my mother’s favourite, 
he taught me, and said to me,
‘Let your heart hold fast my words;
   keep my commandments, and live. 
Get wisdom; get insight: do not forget, nor turn away
   from the words of my mouth. 
Do not forsake her, and she will keep you;
   love her, and she will guard you. 
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom,
   and whatever else you get, get insight. 
Prize her highly, and she will exalt you;
   she will honour you if you embrace her. 
She will place on your head a fair garland;
   she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.’ 

Hear, my child, and accept my words,
   that the years of your life may be many. 
I have taught you the way of wisdom;
   I have led you in the paths of uprightness. 
When you walk, your step will not be hampered;
   and if you run, you will not stumble. 
Keep hold of instruction; do not let go;
   guard her, for she is your life. 
Do not enter the path of the wicked,
   and do not walk in the way of evildoers. 
Avoid it; do not go on it;
   turn away from it and pass on. 
For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong;
   they are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble. 
For they eat the bread of wickedness
   and drink the wine of violence. 
But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
   which shines brighter and brighter until full day. 
The way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
   they do not know what they stumble over. 
My child, be attentive to my words;
   incline your ear to my sayings. 
Do not let them escape from your sight;
   keep them within your heart. 
For they are life to those who find them,
   and healing to all their flesh. 
Keep your heart with all vigilance,
   for from it flow the springs of life. 
Put away from you crooked speech,
   and put devious talk far from you. 
Let your eyes look directly forwards,
   and your gaze be straight before you. 
Keep straight the path of your feet,
   and all your ways will be sure. 
Do not swerve to the right or to the left;
   turn your foot away from evil.
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1 John 4:7-21

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Saviour of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love* because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters,* are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister* whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters* also.
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John 11:30-44

Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’
 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’
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Morning Psalms: Psalm 120, 121, 122, 123

Psalm 120

In my distress I cry to the Lord,
   that he may answer me: 
‘Deliver me, O Lord,
   from lying lips,
   from a deceitful tongue.’ 

What shall be given to you?
   And what more shall be done to you,
   you deceitful tongue? 
A warrior’s sharp arrows,
   with glowing coals of the broom tree! 

Woe is me, that I am an alien in Meshech,
   that I must live among the tents of Kedar. 
Too long have I had my dwelling
   among those who hate peace. 
I am for peace;
   but when I speak,
   they are for war.

Psalm 121

I lift up my eyes to the hills—
   from where will my help come? 
My help comes from the Lord,
   who made heaven and earth. 

He will not let your foot be moved;
   he who keeps you will not slumber. 
He who keeps Israel
   will neither slumber nor sleep. 

The Lord is your keeper;
   the Lord is your shade at your right hand. 
The sun shall not strike you by day,
   nor the moon by night. 

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
   he will keep your life. 
The Lord will keep
   your going out and your coming in
   from this time on and for evermore.

Psalm 122

I was glad when they said to me,
   ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord!’ 
Our feet are standing
   within your gates, O Jerusalem. 

Jerusalem—built as a city
   that is bound firmly together. 
To it the tribes go up,
   the tribes of the Lord,
as was decreed for Israel,
   to give thanks to the name of the Lord. 
For there the thrones for judgement were set up,
   the thrones of the house of David. 

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
   ‘May they prosper who love you. 
Peace be within your walls,
   and security within your towers.’ 
For the sake of my relatives and friends
   I will say, ‘Peace be within you.’ 
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
   I will seek your good.

Psalm 123

To you I lift up my eyes,
   O you who are enthroned in the heavens! 
As the eyes of servants
   look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid
   to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God,
   until he has mercy upon us. 

Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
   for we have had more than enough of contempt. 
Our soul has had more than its fill
   of the scorn of those who are at ease,
   of the contempt of the proud.
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Evening Psalms: Psalm 124, 125, 126, 127

Psalm 124

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side
   —let Israel now say— 
if it had not been the Lord who was on our side,
   when our enemies attacked us, 
then they would have swallowed us up alive,
   when their anger was kindled against us; 
then the flood would have swept us away,
   the torrent would have gone over us; 
then over us would have gone
   the raging waters. 

Blessed be the Lord,
   who has not given us
   as prey to their teeth. 
We have escaped like a bird
   from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
   and we have escaped. 

Our help is in the name of the Lord,
   who made heaven and earth.

Psalm 125

Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,
   which cannot be moved, but abides for ever. 
As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
   so the Lord surrounds his people,
   from this time on and for evermore. 
For the sceptre of wickedness shall not rest
   on the land allotted to the righteous,
so that the righteous may not stretch out
   their hands to do wrong. 
Do good, O Lord, to those who are good,
   and to those who are upright in their hearts. 
But those who turn aside to their own crooked ways
   the Lord will lead away with evildoers.
   Peace be upon Israel!

Psalm 126

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,*
   we were like those who dream. 
Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
   and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
   ‘The Lord has done great things for them.’ 
The Lord has done great things for us,
   and we rejoiced. 

Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
   like the watercourses in the Negeb. 
May those who sow in tears
   reap with shouts of joy. 
Those who go out weeping,
   bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
   carrying their sheaves.

Psalm 127

Unless the Lord builds the house,
   those who build it labour in vain.
Unless the Lord guards the city,
   the guard keeps watch in vain. 
It is in vain that you rise up early
   and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
   for he gives sleep to his beloved.* 

Sons are indeed a heritage from the Lord,
   the fruit of the womb a reward. 
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
   are the sons of one’s youth. 
Happy is the man who has
   his quiver full of them.
He shall not be put to shame
   when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.
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