Preparing for the Sixth
Sunday after Pentecost

Year A

Prayer

Psalm 65:[1-8] 9-13

Your paths overflow with plenty

 

[Praise is due to you,

O God, in Zion;

and to you shall vows be performed,

O you who answer prayer!

To you all flesh shall come.

When deeds of iniquity overwhelm us,

you forgive our transgressions.

Happy are those whom you choose and bring near

to live in your courts.

We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,

your holy temple.

By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance,

O God of our salvation;

you are the hope of all the ends of the earth

and of the farthest seas.

By your strength you established the mountains;

you are girded with might.

You silence the roaring of the seas,

the roaring of their waves,

the tumult of the peoples.

Those who live at earth’s farthest bounds are awed by your signs;

you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy.]

You visit the earth and water it,

you greatly enrich it;

the river of God is full of water;

you provide the people with grain,

for so you have prepared it.

You water its furrows abundantly,

settling its ridges,

softening it with showers,

and blessing its growth.

You crown the year with your bounty;

your wagon tracks overflow with richness.

The pastures of the wilderness overflow,

the hills gird themselves with joy,

the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,

the valleys deck themselves with grain,

they shout and sing together for joy.

 

Isaiah 48:6-11

You will hear new, hidden things

 

You have heard; now see all this;

and will you not declare it?

From this time forward I make you hear new things,

hidden things that you have not known.

They are created now, not long ago;

before today you have never heard of them,

so that you could not say, “I already knew them.”

You have never heard, you have never known,

from of old your ear has not been opened.

For I knew that you would deal very treacherously,

and that from birth you were called a rebel.

For my name’s sake I defer my anger,

for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you,

so that I may not cut you off.

See, I have refined you, but not like silver;

I have tested you in the furnace of adversity.

For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it,

for why should my name be profaned?

My glory I will not give to another.

 

Romans 15:14-21

Sanctified by the Holy Spirit

 

I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another. Nevertheless on some points I have written to you rather boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast of my work for God. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ. Thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the good news, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written,

 

“Those who have never been told of him shall see,

    and those who have never heard of him shall understand.”