Reflecting on the Fifth
Sunday after Pentecost
Year B

Daily Readings for Tuesday
June 29, 2021

Prayer

God of hope, 

you are ruler of night as well as day, 

guardian of those who wander in the shadows. 

Be new light and life 

for those who live in the darkness of despair, 

for prisoners of guilt and grief, 

for victims of fantasy and depression, 

that even where death’s cold grip tightens, 

we may know the power of the one 

who conquered fear and death. Amen.

 

Psalm 18:1-6, 43-50

Steadfast love to God’s anointed

 

I love you, O Lord, my strength.

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer,

my God, my rock in whom I take refuge,

my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,

so I shall be saved from my enemies.

The cords of death encompassed me;

the torrents of perdition assailed me;

the cords of Sheol entangled me;

the snares of death confronted me.

In my distress I called upon the Lord;

to my God I cried for help.

From his temple he heard my voice,

and my cry to him reached his ears.

You delivered me from strife with the peoples;

you made me head of the nations;

people whom I had not known served me.

As soon as they heard of me they obeyed me;

foreigners came cringing to me.

Foreigners lost heart,

and came trembling out of their strongholds.

The Lord lives! Blessed be my rock,

and exalted be the God of my salvation,

the God who gave me vengeance

and subdued peoples under me;

who delivered me from my enemies;

indeed, you exalted me above my adversaries;

you delivered me from the violent.

For this I will extol you, O Lord, among the nations,

and sing praises to your name.

Great triumphs he gives to his king,

and shows steadfast love to his anointed,

to David and his descendants forever.

 

1 Samuel 31:1-13

Saul and his sons die

 

Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines, and many fell on Mount Gilboa. The Philistines overtook Saul and his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan and Abinadab and Malchishua, the sons of Saul. The battle pressed hard upon Saul; the archers found him, and he was badly wounded by them. Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and thrust me through with it, so that these uncircumcised may not come and thrust me through, and make sport of me.” But his armor-bearer was unwilling; for he was terrified. So Saul took his own sword and fell upon it. When his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him. So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer and all his men died together on the same day. When the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley and those beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook their towns and fled; and the Philistines came and occupied them.

 

The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa. They cut off his head, stripped off his armor, and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the houses of their idols and to the people. They put his armor in the temple of Astarte; and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan. But when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, all the valiant men set out, traveled all night long, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan. They came to Jabesh and burned them there. Then they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

 

2 Corinthians 9:1-5

Voluntary gifts, not extortion

 

Now it is not necessary for me to write you about the ministry to the saints, for I know your eagerness, which is the subject of my boasting about you to the people of Macedonia, saying that Achaia has been ready since last year; and your zeal has stirred up most of them. But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you may not prove to have been empty in this case, so that you may be ready, as I said you would be; otherwise, if some Macedonians come with me and find that you are not ready, we would be humiliated—to say nothing of you—in this undertaking. So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you, and arrange in advance for this bountiful gift that you have promised, so that it may be ready as a voluntary gift and not as an extortion.

 

 

Prayer

Companion in life and death, 

your love is steadfast and never ends; 

our weeping may linger with night, 

but you give joy in the morning. 

Touch us with your healing grace 

that, restored to wholeness, 

we may live out our calling 

as your resurrection people. Amen.

 

Psalm 88

Prayer for restoration

 

Lord, God of my salvation,

when, at night, I cry out in your presence,

let my prayer come before you;

incline your ear to my cry.

For my soul is full of troubles,

and my life draws near to Sheol.

I am counted among those who go down to the Pit;

I am like those who have no help,

like those forsaken among the dead,

like the slain that lie in the grave,

like those whom you remember no more,

for they are cut off from your hand.

You have put me in the depths of the Pit,

in the regions dark and deep.

Your wrath lies heavy upon me,

and you overwhelm me with all your waves.    Selah

You have caused my companions to shun me;

you have made me a thing of horror to them.

I am shut in so that I cannot escape;

my eye grows dim through sorrow.

Every day I call on you, O Lord;

I spread out my hands to you.

Do you work wonders for the dead?

Do the shades rise up to praise you?    Selah

Is your steadfast love declared in the grave,

or your faithfulness in Abaddon?

Are your wonders known in the darkness,

or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness?

But I, O Lord, cry out to you;

in the morning my prayer comes before you.

Lord, why do you cast me off?

Why do you hide your face from me?

Wretched and close to death from my youth up,

I suffer your terrors; I am desperate.

Your wrath has swept over me;

your dread assaults destroy me.

They surround me like a flood all day long;

from all sides they close in on me.

You have caused friend and neighbor to shun me;

my companions are in darkness.

 

Leviticus 15:19-31

Bleeding women are unclean

 

When a woman has a discharge of blood that is her regular discharge from her body, she shall be in her impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her shall be unclean until the evening. Everything upon which she lies during her impurity shall be unclean; everything also upon which she sits shall be unclean. Whoever touches her bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe in water, and be unclean until the evening. Whoever touches anything upon which she sits shall wash his clothes, and bathe in water, and be unclean until the evening; whether it is the bed or anything upon which she sits, when he touches it he shall be unclean until the evening. If any man lies with her, and her impurity falls on him, he shall be unclean seven days; and every bed on which he lies shall be unclean.

 

If a woman has a discharge of blood for many days, not at the time of her impurity, or if she has a discharge beyond the time of her impurity, all the days of the discharge she shall continue in uncleanness; as in the days of her impurity, she shall be unclean. Every bed on which she lies during all the days of her discharge shall be treated as the bed of her impurity; and everything on which she sits shall be unclean, as in the uncleanness of her impurity. Whoever touches these things shall be unclean, and shall wash his clothes, and bathe in water, and be unclean until the evening. If she is cleansed of her discharge, she shall count seven days, and after that she shall be clean. On the eighth day she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting. The priest shall offer one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering; and the priest shall make atonement on her behalf before the Lord for her unclean discharge.

 

Thus you shall keep the people of Israel separate from their uncleanness, so that they do not die in their uncleanness by defiling my tabernacle that is in their midst.

 

2 Corinthians 9:1-5

Voluntary gifts, not extortion

 

Now it is not necessary for me to write you about the ministry to the saints, for I know your eagerness, which is the subject of my boasting about you to the people of Macedonia, saying that Achaia has been ready since last year; and your zeal has stirred up most of them. But I am sending the brothers in order that our boasting about you may not prove to have been empty in this case, so that you may be ready, as I said you would be; otherwise, if some Macedonians come with me and find that you are not ready, we would be humiliated—to say nothing of you—in this undertaking. So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to go on ahead to you, and arrange in advance for this bountiful gift that you have promised, so that it may be ready as a voluntary gift and not as an extortion.

 

 

Logo full blue lg

Subscribe to DailyLectio

Download the DailyLectio App

Prayer reprinted from Revised Common Lectionary Prayers, © 2002 Consultation on Common Texts. Reproduced by permission.

Revised Common Lectionary Daily Readings copyright © 2005 Consultation on Common Texts admin. Augsburg Fortress. Reproduced by permission. No further reproduction allowed without the written permission of Augsburg Fortress.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.


Powered by Word for Life. A 501c3 Nonprofit Organization