Wednesday 28 August 2024 DAILY LECTIONARY

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Wednesday 28 August 2024  
DAILY LECTIONARY

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Job 6:1, 7:1-21

Then Job answered:
‘Do not human beings have a hard service on earth,
   and are not their days like the days of a labourer? 
Like a slave who longs for the shadow,
   and like labourers who look for their wages, 
so I am allotted months of emptiness,
   and nights of misery are apportioned to me. 
When I lie down I say, “When shall I rise?”
   But the night is long,
   and I am full of tossing until dawn. 
My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt;
   my skin hardens, then breaks out again. 
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
   and come to their end without hope.* 

‘Remember that my life is a breath;
   my eye will never again see good. 
The eye that beholds me will see me no more;
   while your eyes are upon me, I shall be gone. 
As the cloud fades and vanishes,
   so those who go down to Sheol do not come up; 
they return no more to their houses,
   nor do their places know them any more. 

‘Therefore I will not restrain my mouth;
   I will speak in the anguish of my spirit;
   I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. 
Am I the Sea, or the Dragon,
   that you set a guard over me? 
When I say, “My bed will comfort me,
   my couch will ease my complaint”, 
then you scare me with dreams
   and terrify me with visions, 
so that I would choose strangling
   and death rather than this body. 
I loathe my life; I would not live for ever.
   Let me alone, for my days are a breath. 
What are human beings, that you make so much of them,
   that you set your mind on them, 
visit them every morning,
   test them every moment? 
Will you not look away from me for a while,
   let me alone until I swallow my spittle? 
If I sin, what do I do to you, you watcher of humanity?
   Why have you made me your target?
   Why have I become a burden to you? 
Why do you not pardon my transgression
   and take away my iniquity?
For now I shall lie in the earth;
   you will seek me, but I shall not be.’
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Acts 10:1-16

In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the
Italian Cohort, as it was called. He was a devout man who feared God
with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and
prayed constantly to God. One afternoon at about three o’clock he
had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and
saying to him, ‘Cornelius.’ He stared at him in terror and said,
‘What is it, Lord?’ He answered, ‘Your prayers and your alms
have ascended as a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa for a
certain Simon who is called Peter; he is lodging with Simon, a tanner,
whose house is by the seaside.’ When the angel who spoke to him had
left, he called two of his slaves and a devout soldier from the ranks
of those who served him, and after telling them everything, he sent
them to Joppa.

 About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and
approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. He became
hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared,
he fell into a trance. He saw the heaven opened and something like a
large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four
corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles
and birds of the air. Then he heard a voice saying, ‘Get up, Peter;
kill and eat.’ But Peter said, ‘By no means, Lord; for I have
never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.’ The voice said to
him again, a second time, ‘What God has made clean, you must not
call profane.’ This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly
taken up to heaven.
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John 7:1-13

After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish* to go about
in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him.
Now the Jewish festival of Booths* was near. So his brothers said to
him, ‘Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see
the works you are doing; for no one who wants* to be widely known acts
in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.’ (For
not even his brothers believed in him.) Jesus said to them, ‘My time
has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate
you, but it hates me because I testify against it that its works are
evil. Go to the festival yourselves. I am not* going to this festival,
for my time has not yet fully come.’ After saying this, he remained
in Galilee.
 But after his brothers had gone to the festival, then he also went,
not publicly but as it were* in secret. The Jews were looking for him
at the festival and saying, ‘Where is he?’ And there was
considerable complaining about him among the crowds. While some were
saying, ‘He is a good man’, others were saying, ‘No, he is
deceiving the crowd.’ Yet no one would speak openly about him for
fear of the Jews.
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Morning Psalms:  Psalm 119:1-24

Psalm 119:1-24

Happy are those whose way is blameless,
   who walk in the law of the Lord. 
Happy are those who keep his decrees,
   who seek him with their whole heart, 
who also do no wrong,
   but walk in his ways. 
You have commanded your precepts
   to be kept diligently. 
O that my ways may be steadfast
   in keeping your statutes! 
Then I shall not be put to shame,
   having my eyes fixed on all your commandments. 
I will praise you with an upright heart,
   when I learn your righteous ordinances. 
I will observe your statutes;
   do not utterly forsake me. 

How can young people keep their way pure?
   By guarding it according to your word. 
With my whole heart I seek you;
   do not let me stray from your commandments. 
I treasure your word in my heart,
   so that I may not sin against you. 
Blessed are you, O Lord;
   teach me your statutes. 
With my lips I declare
   all the ordinances of your mouth. 
I delight in the way of your decrees
   as much as in all riches. 
I will meditate on your precepts,
   and fix my eyes on your ways. 
I will delight in your statutes;
   I will not forget your word. 

Deal bountifully with your servant,
   so that I may live and observe your word. 
Open my eyes, so that I may behold
   wondrous things out of your law. 
I live as an alien in the land;
   do not hide your commandments from me. 
My soul is consumed with longing
   for your ordinances at all times. 
You rebuke the insolent, accursed ones,
   who wander from your commandments; 
take away from me their scorn and contempt,
   for I have kept your decrees. 
Even though princes sit plotting against me,
   your servant will meditate on your statutes. 
Your decrees are my delight,
   they are my counsellors.
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Evening Psalms:  Psalm 12, 13, 14

Psalm 12

Help, O Lord, for there is no longer anyone who is godly;
   the faithful have disappeared from humankind. 
They utter lies to each other;
   with flattering lips and a double heart they speak. 

May the Lord cut off all flattering lips,
   the tongue that makes great boasts, 
those who say, ‘With our tongues we will prevail;
   our lips are our own—who is our master?’ 

‘Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan,
   I will now rise up,’ says the Lord;
   ‘I will place them in the safety for which they long.’ 
The promises of the Lord are promises that are pure,
   silver refined in a furnace on the ground,
   purified seven times. 

You, O Lord, will protect us;
   you will guard us from this generation for ever. 
On every side the wicked prowl,
   as vileness is exalted among humankind.

Psalm 13

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever?
   How long will you hide your face from me? 
How long must I bear pain* in my soul,
   and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? 

Consider and answer me, O Lord my God!
   Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, 
and my enemy will say, ‘I have prevailed’;
   my foes will rejoice because I am shaken. 

But I trusted in your steadfast love;
   my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. 
I will sing to the Lord,
   because he has dealt bountifully with me.

Psalm 14

Fools say in their hearts, ‘There is no God.’
   They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
   there is no one who does good. 

The Lord looks down from heaven on humankind
   to see if there are any who are wise,
   who seek after God. 

They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse;
   there is no one who does good,
   no, not one. 

Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers
   who eat up my people as they eat bread,
   and do not call upon the Lord? 

There they shall be in great terror,
   for God is with the company of the righteous. 
You would confound the plans of the poor,
   but the Lord is their refuge. 

O that deliverance for Israel would come from Zion!
   When the Lord restores the fortunes of his people,
   Jacob will rejoice; Israel will be glad.
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