Preparing for the Twenty-Fourth
Sunday after Pentecost

Year A

Prayer

Psalm 90:1-8 [9-11] 12

Number your days

 

 Lord, you have been our dwelling place

in all generations.

Before the mountains were brought forth,

or ever you had formed the earth and the world,

from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

You turn us back to dust,

and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”

For a thousand years in your sight

are like yesterday when it is past,

or like a watch in the night.

You sweep them away; they are like a dream,

like grass that is renewed in the morning;

in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;

in the evening it fades and withers.

For we are consumed by your anger;

by your wrath we are overwhelmed.

You have set our iniquities before you,

our secret sins in the light of your countenance.

[For all our days pass away under your wrath;

our years come to an end like a sigh.

The days of our life are seventy years,

or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;

even then their span is only toil and trouble;

they are soon gone, and we fly away.

Who considers the power of your anger?

Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you.]

So teach us to count our days

that we may gain a wise heart.

 

Ezekiel 7:10-27

You shall know that the Lord is God

 

See, the day! See, it comes!

Your doom has gone out.

The rod has blossomed, pride has budded.

Violence has grown into a rod of wickedness.

None of them shall remain,

not their abundance, not their wealth;

no pre-eminence among them.

The time has come, the day draws near;

let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn,

for wrath is upon all their multitude.

 

For the sellers shall not return to what has been sold as long as they remain alive. For the vision concerns all their multitude; it shall not be revoked. Because of their iniquity, they cannot maintain their lives.

 

They have blown the horn and made everything ready;

but no one goes to battle,

for my wrath is upon all their multitude.

The sword is outside, pestilence and famine are inside;

those in the field die by the sword;

those in the city—famine and pestilence devour them.

If any survivors escape,

they shall be found on the mountains

like doves of the valleys,

all of them moaning over their iniquity.

All hands shall grow feeble,

all knees turn to water.

They shall put on sackcloth,

horror shall cover them.

Shame shall be on all faces,

baldness on all their heads.

They shall fling their silver into the streets,

their gold shall be treated as unclean.

 

Their silver and gold cannot save them on the day of the wrath of the Lord. They shall not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs with it. For it was the stumbling block of their iniquity. From their beautiful ornament, in which they took pride, they made their abominable images, their detestable things; therefore I will make of it an unclean thing to them.

 

I will hand it over to strangers as booty,

to the wicked of the earth as plunder;

they shall profane it.

I will avert my face from them,

so that they may profane my treasured place;

the violent shall enter it,

they shall profane it.

Make a chain!

For the land is full of bloody crimes;

the city is full of violence.

I will bring the worst of the nations

to take possession of their houses.

I will put an end to the arrogance of the strong,

and their holy places shall be profaned.

When anguish comes, they will seek peace,

but there shall be none.

Disaster comes upon disaster,

rumor follows rumor;

they shall keep seeking a vision from the prophet;

instruction shall perish from the priest,

and counsel from the elders.

The king shall mourn,

the prince shall be wrapped in despair,

and the hands of the people of the land shall tremble.

According to their way I will deal with them;

according to their own judgments I will judge them.

 

And they shall know that I am the Lord.

 

Matthew 12:43-45

From bad to worse

 

“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation.”