Preparing for the Fifteenth
Sunday after Pentecost
Year B

Daily Readings for Thursday
September 2, 2021

Prayer

Holy Lord, maker of us all, 

you call us to love our neighbors as ourselves 

and teach us that faith without works is dead. 

Open us to the opportunities for ministry that lie before us, 

where faith and works and the need of our neighbor 

come together in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.

 

Psalm 125

Trust in the Lord

 

Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,

which cannot be moved, but abides forever.

As the mountains surround Jerusalem,

so the Lord surrounds his people,

from this time on and forevermore.

For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest

on the land allotted to the righteous,

so that the righteous might not stretch out

their hands to do wrong.

Do good, O Lord, to those who are good,

and to those who are upright in their hearts.

But those who turn aside to their own crooked ways

the Lord will lead away with evildoers.

Peace be upon Israel!

 

Proverbs 1:1-19

Warnings against bad friends

 

The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:

 

For learning about wisdom and instruction,

for understanding words of insight,

for gaining instruction in wise dealing,

righteousness, justice, and equity;

to teach shrewdness to the simple,

knowledge and prudence to the young—

let the wise also hear and gain in learning,

and the discerning acquire skill,

to understand a proverb and a figure,

the words of the wise and their riddles.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;

fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Hear, my child, your father’s instruction,

and do not reject your mother’s teaching;

for they are a fair garland for your head,

and pendants for your neck.

My child, if sinners entice you,

do not consent.

If they say, “Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood;

let us wantonly ambush the innocent;

like Sheol let us swallow them alive

and whole, like those who go down to the Pit.

We shall find all kinds of costly things;

we shall fill our houses with booty.

Throw in your lot among us;

we will all have one purse”—

my child, do not walk in their way,

keep your foot from their paths;

for their feet run to evil,

and they hurry to shed blood.

For in vain is the net baited

while the bird is looking on;

yet they lie in wait—to kill themselves!

and set an ambush—for their own lives!

Such is the end of all who are greedy for gain;

it takes away the life of its possessors.

 

Romans 2:1-11

Divine judgment applies to all

 

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, “We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.” Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.

 

 

Prayer

God, whose love streams like fresh water 

into the deserts of our hearts, 

you turn us from greed and partiality 

to healing and justice. 

Make us companions of those who long for your deliverance, 

and give us safe passage at the last 

into the land of your shalom. Amen.

 

Psalm 146

Help and hope come from God

 

Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord, O my soul!

I will praise the Lord as long as I live;

I will sing praises to my God all my life long.

Do not put your trust in princes,

in mortals, in whom there is no help.

When their breath departs, they return to the earth;

on that very day their plans perish.

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,

whose hope is in the Lord their God,

who made heaven and earth,

the sea, and all that is in them;

who keeps faith forever;

who executes justice for the oppressed;

who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;

the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.

The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;

the Lord loves the righteous.

The Lord watches over the strangers;

he upholds the orphan and the widow,

but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

The Lord will reign forever,

your God, O Zion, for all generations.

Praise the Lord!

 

Isaiah 30:27-33

God sifts the nations

 

See, the name of the Lord comes from far away,

burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke;

his lips are full of indignation,

and his tongue is like a devouring fire;

his breath is like an overflowing stream

that reaches up to the neck—

to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction,

and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads them astray.

 

You shall have a song as in the night when a holy festival is kept; and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. And the Lord will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and tempest and hailstones. The Assyrian will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord, when he strikes with his rod. And every stroke of the staff of punishment that the Lord lays upon him will be to the sound of timbrels and lyres; battling with brandished arm he will fight with him. For his burning place has long been prepared; truly it is made ready for the king, its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it.

 

Romans 2:1-11

Divine judgment applies to all

 

Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. You say, “We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.” Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. For he will repay according to each one’s deeds: to those who by patiently doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; while for those who are self-seeking and who obey not the truth but wickedness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be anguish and distress for everyone who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.

 

 

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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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