Preparing for the Second
Sunday after Pentecost

Year C

Psalm 92:1-4, 12-15

The righteous flourish like a palm tree

 

It is good to give thanks to the Lord,

to sing praises to your name, O Most High;

to declare your steadfast love in the morning,

and your faithfulness by night,

to the music of the lute and the harp,

to the melody of the lyre.

For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;

at the works of your hands I sing for joy.

The righteous flourish like the palm tree,

and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

They are planted in the house of the Lord;

they flourish in the courts of our God.

In old age they still produce fruit;

they are always green and full of sap,

showing that the Lord is upright;

he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

 

Proverbs 13:1-12

A fulfilled desire is like a tree of life

 

A wise child loves discipline,

but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.

From the fruit of their words good persons eat good things,

but the desire of the treacherous is for wrongdoing.

Those who guard their mouths preserve their lives;

those who open wide their lips come to ruin.

The appetite of the lazy craves, and gets nothing,

while the appetite of the diligent is richly supplied.

The righteous hate falsehood,

but the wicked act shamefully and disgracefully.

Righteousness guards one whose way is upright,

but sin overthrows the wicked.

Some pretend to be rich, yet have nothing;

others pretend to be poor, yet have great wealth.

Wealth is a ransom for a person’s life,

but the poor get no threats.

The light of the righteous rejoices,

but the lamp of the wicked goes out.

By insolence the heedless make strife,

but wisdom is with those who take advice.

Wealth hastily gotten will dwindle,

but those who gather little by little will increase it.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,

but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

 

Romans 5:12—6:2

Eternal life through Jesus Christ

 

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned—sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.

 

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many. And the free gift is not like the effect of the one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. If, because of the one man’s trespass, death exercised dominion through that one, much more surely will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness exercise dominion in life through the one man, Jesus Christ.

 

Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. But law came in, with the result that the trespass multiplied; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, so that, just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace might also exercise dominion through justification leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

 

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?