Preparing for the Fourteenth
Sunday after Pentecost
Year B

Daily Readings for Thursday
August 26, 2021

Prayer

Blessed are you, O Lord and Lover, 

source of beauty and depth of passion. 

Strengthen and inspire us to do the word we hear 

and live the faith we confess. Amen.

 

Psalm 45:1-2, 6-9

Anointed with the oil of gladness

 

My heart overflows with a goodly theme;

I address my verses to the king;

my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe.

You are the most handsome of men;

grace is poured upon your lips;

therefore God has blessed you forever.

Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever.

Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity;

you love righteousness and hate wickedness.

Therefore God, your God, has anointed you

with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;

your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia.

From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad;

daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor;

at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.

 

Song of Solomon 1:1-17

Love better than wine

 

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!

For your love is better than wine,

your anointing oils are fragrant,

your name is perfume poured out;

therefore the maidens love you.

Draw me after you, let us make haste.

The king has brought me into his chambers.

We will exult and rejoice in you;

we will extol your love more than wine;

rightly do they love you.

I am black and beautiful,

O daughters of Jerusalem,

like the tents of Kedar,

like the curtains of Solomon.

Do not gaze at me because I am dark,

because the sun has gazed on me.

My mother’s sons were angry with me;

they made me keeper of the vineyards,

but my own vineyard I have not kept!

Tell me, you whom my soul loves,

where you pasture your flock,

where you make it lie down at noon;

for why should I be like one who is veiled

beside the flocks of your companions?

If you do not know,

O fairest among women,

follow the tracks of the flock,

and pasture your kids

beside the shepherds’ tents.

I compare you, my love,

to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots.

Your cheeks are comely with ornaments,

your neck with strings of jewels.

We will make you ornaments of gold,

studded with silver.

While the king was on his couch,

my nard gave forth its fragrance.

My beloved is to me a bag of myrrh

that lies between my breasts.

My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms

in the vineyards of En-gedi.

Ah, you are beautiful, my love;

ah, you are beautiful;

your eyes are doves.

Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved,

truly lovely.

Our couch is green;

the beams of our house are cedar,

our rafters are pine.

 

James 1:1-8

One who doubts is like a wave of the sea

 

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

 

To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:

 

Greetings.

 

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

 

If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

 

 

Prayer

O Father of lights, 

from whose word of truth 

we have been born as firstfruits of your creatures: 

make us quick to listen and slow to speak, 

that the word implanted in us 

may take root to nourish all our living, 

and that we may be blessed in our doing 

and fruitful in action. Amen.

 

Psalm 15

Dwelling in God’s tabernacle

 

O Lord, who may abide in your tent?

Who may dwell on your holy hill?

Those who walk blamelessly, and do what is right,

and speak the truth from their heart;

who do not slander with their tongue,

and do no evil to their friends,

nor take up a reproach against their neighbors;

in whose eyes the wicked are despised,

but who honor those who fear the Lord;

who stand by their oath even to their hurt;

who do not lend money at interest,

and do not take a bribe against the innocent.

Those who do these things shall never be moved.

 

Exodus 32:1-14

The Israelites make themselves a god

 

When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron said to them, “Take off the gold rings that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people took off the gold rings from their ears, and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from them, formed it in a mold, and cast an image of a calf; and they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a festival to the Lord.” They rose early the next day, and offered burnt offerings and brought sacrifices of well-being; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.

 

The Lord said to Moses, “Go down at once! Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely; they have been quick to turn aside from the way that I commanded them; they have cast for themselves an image of a calf, and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!’” The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, how stiff-necked they are. Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”

 

But Moses implored the Lord his God, and said, “O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your fierce wrath; change your mind and do not bring disaster on your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, how you swore to them by your own self, saying to them, ‘I will multiply your descendants like the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have promised I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.’” And the Lord changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

 

James 1:1-8

One who doubts is like a wave of the sea

 

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,

 

To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:

 

Greetings.

 

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.

 

If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind; for the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.

 

 

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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.


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