Saturday 28 January 2023 DAILY LECTIONARY

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Saturday 28 January 2023 
DAILY LECTIONARY

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Isaiah 51:1-8

Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness,
   you that seek the Lord.
Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
   and to the quarry from which you were dug. 
Look to Abraham your father
   and to Sarah who bore you;
for he was but one when I called him,
   but I blessed him and made him many. 
For the Lord will comfort Zion;
   he will comfort all her waste places,
and will make her wilderness like Eden,
   her desert like the garden of the Lord;
joy and gladness will be found in her,
   thanksgiving and the voice of song. 

Listen to me, my people,
   and give heed to me, my nation;
for a teaching will go out from me,
   and my justice for a light to the peoples. 
I will bring near my deliverance swiftly,
   my salvation has gone out
   and my arms will rule the peoples;
the coastlands wait for me,
   and for my arm they hope. 
Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
   and look at the earth beneath;
for the heavens will vanish like smoke,
   the earth will wear out like a garment,
   and those who live on it will die like gnats;*
but my salvation will be for ever,
   and my deliverance will never be ended. 

Listen to me, you who know righteousness,
   you people who have my teaching in your hearts;
do not fear the reproach of others,
   and do not be dismayed when they revile you. 
For the moth will eat them up like a garment,
   and the worm will eat them like wool;
but my deliverance will be for ever,
   and my salvation to all generations.
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Galatians 3:23-29

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law
until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our
disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by
faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a
disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God
through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have
clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there
is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for
all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then
you are Abraham’s offspring,* heirs according to the promise.
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Mark 7:1-23

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from
Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples
were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For
the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly
wash their hands,* thus observing the tradition of the elders; and
they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it;* and
there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of
cups, pots, and bronze kettles.*) So the Pharisees and the scribes
asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not live* according to the
tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?’ He said to
them, ‘Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is
written,
“This people honours me with their lips,
   but their hearts are far from me; 
in vain do they worship me,
   teaching human precepts as doctrines.” 
You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.’

 Then he said to them, ‘You have a fine way of rejecting the
commandment of God in order to keep your tradition! For Moses said,
“Honour your father and your mother”; and, “Whoever speaks evil
of father or mother must surely die.” But you say that if anyone
tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me
is Corban” (that is, an offering to God*)— then you no longer
permit doing anything for a father or mother, thus making void the
word of God through your tradition that you have handed on. And you do
many things like this.’

 Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me,
all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by
going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’*

 When he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples
asked him about the parable. He said to them, ‘Then do you also fail
to understand? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from
outside cannot defile, since it enters, not the heart but the stomach,
and goes out into the sewer?’ (Thus he declared all foods clean.)
And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it
is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come:
fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit,
licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things
come from within, and they defile a person.’
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Morning Psalms: Psalm 55

Psalm 55

Give ear to my prayer, O God;
   do not hide yourself from my supplication. 
Attend to me, and answer me;
   I am troubled in my complaint.
I am distraught by the noise of the enemy,
   because of the clamour of the wicked.
For they bring* trouble upon me,
   and in anger they cherish enmity against me. 

My heart is in anguish within me,
   the terrors of death have fallen upon me. 
Fear and trembling come upon me,
   and horror overwhelms me. 
And I say, ‘O that I had wings like a dove!
   I would fly away and be at rest; 
truly, I would flee far away;
   I would lodge in the wilderness;
          Selah 
I would hurry to find a shelter for myself
   from the raging wind and tempest.’ 

Confuse, O Lord, confound their speech;
   for I see violence and strife in the city. 
Day and night they go around it
   on its walls,
and iniquity and trouble are within it; 
   ruin is in its midst;
oppression and fraud
   do not depart from its market-place. 

It is not enemies who taunt me—
   I could bear that;
it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me—
   I could hide from them. 
But it is you, my equal,
   my companion, my familiar friend, 
with whom I kept pleasant company;
   we walked in the house of God with the throng. 
Let death come upon them;
   let them go down alive to Sheol;
   for evil is in their homes and in their hearts. 

But I call upon God,
   and the Lord will save me. 
Evening and morning and at noon
   I utter my complaint and moan,
   and he will hear my voice. 
He will redeem me unharmed
   from the battle that I wage,
   for many are arrayed against me. 
God, who is enthroned from of old,
          Selah
   will hear, and will humble them—
because they do not change,
   and do not fear God. 

My companion laid hands on a friend
   and violated a covenant with me* 
with speech smoother than butter,
   but with a heart set on war;
with words that were softer than oil,
   but in fact were drawn swords. 

Cast your burden* on the Lord,
   and he will sustain you;
he will never permit
   the righteous to be moved. 

But you, O God, will cast them down
   into the lowest pit;
the bloodthirsty and treacherous
   shall not live out half their days.
But I will trust in you.
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Evening Psalms: Psalm 138, 139

Psalm 138

I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart;
   before the gods I sing your praise; 
I bow down towards your holy temple
   and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your
faithfulness;
   for you have exalted your name and your word
   above everything.* 
On the day I called, you answered me,
   you increased my strength of soul.* 

All the kings of the earth shall praise you, O Lord,
   for they have heard the words of your mouth. 
They shall sing of the ways of the Lord,
   for great is the glory of the Lord. 
For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly;
   but the haughty he perceives from far away. 

Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
   you preserve me against the wrath of my enemies;
you stretch out your hand,
   and your right hand delivers me. 
The Lord will fulfil his purpose for me;
   your steadfast love, O Lord, endures for ever.
   Do not forsake the work of your hands.

Psalm 139

O Lord, you have searched me and known me. 
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
   you discern my thoughts from far away. 
You search out my path and my lying down,
   and are acquainted with all my ways. 
Even before a word is on my tongue,
   O Lord, you know it completely. 
You hem me in, behind and before,
   and lay your hand upon me. 
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
   it is so high that I cannot attain it. 

Where can I go from your spirit?
   Or where can I flee from your presence? 
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
   if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 
If I take the wings of the morning
   and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, 
even there your hand shall lead me,
   and your right hand shall hold me fast. 
If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me,
   and the light around me become night’, 
even the darkness is not dark to you;
   the night is as bright as the day,
   for darkness is as light to you. 

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
   Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well. 
   My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
   intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
   all the days that were formed for me,
   when none of them as yet existed. 
How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
   How vast is the sum of them! 
I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
   I come to the end*—I am still with you. 

O that you would kill the wicked, O God,
   and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me— 
those who speak of you maliciously,
   and lift themselves up against you for evil!* 
Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
   And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? 
I hate them with perfect hatred;
   I count them my enemies. 
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
   test me and know my thoughts. 
See if there is any wicked* way in me,
   and lead me in the way everlasting.
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