Preparing for the Nineteenth
Sunday after Pentecost

Year B

Prayer

Psalm 26

Your love is before my eyes

 

Vindicate me, O Lord,

for I have walked in my integrity,

and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.

Prove me, O Lord, and try me;

test my heart and mind.

For your steadfast love is before my eyes,

and I walk in faithfulness to you.

I do not sit with the worthless,

nor do I consort with hypocrites;

I hate the company of evildoers,

and will not sit with the wicked.

I wash my hands in innocence,

and go around your altar, O Lord,

singing aloud a song of thanksgiving,

and telling all your wondrous deeds.

O Lord, I love the house in which you dwell,

and the place where your glory abides.

Do not sweep me away with sinners,

nor my life with the bloodthirsty,

those in whose hands are evil devices,

and whose right hands are full of bribes.

But as for me, I walk in my integrity;

redeem me, and be gracious to me.

My foot stands on level ground;

in the great congregation I will bless the Lord.

 

Job 2:11—3:26

Job and his friends

 

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home—Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort him. When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads. They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.

 

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. Job said:

 

“Let the day perish in which I was born,

and the night that said,

‘A man-child is conceived.’

Let that day be darkness!

May God above not seek it,

or light shine on it.

Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.

Let clouds settle upon it;

let the blackness of the day terrify it.

That night—let thick darkness seize it!

let it not rejoice among the days of the year;

let it not come into the number of the months.

Yes, let that night be barren;

let no joyful cry be heard in it.

Let those curse it who curse the Sea,

those who are skilled to rouse up Leviathan.

Let the stars of its dawn be dark;

let it hope for light, but have none;

may it not see the eyelids of the morning—

because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb,

and hide trouble from my eyes.

“Why did I not die at birth,

come forth from the womb and expire?

Why were there knees to receive me,

or breasts for me to suck?

Now I would be lying down and quiet;

I would be asleep; then I would be at rest

with kings and counselors of the earth

who rebuild ruins for themselves,

or with princes who have gold,

who fill their houses with silver.

Or why was I not buried like a stillborn child,

like an infant that never sees the light?

There the wicked cease from troubling,

and there the weary are at rest.

There the prisoners are at ease together;

they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster.

The small and the great are there,

and the slaves are free from their masters.

“Why is light given to one in misery,

and life to the bitter in soul,

who long for death, but it does not come,

and dig for it more than for hidden treasures;

who rejoice exceedingly,

and are glad when they find the grave?

Why is light given to one who cannot see the way,

whom God has fenced in?

For my sighing comes like my bread,

and my groanings are poured out like water.

Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me,

and what I dread befalls me.

I am not at ease, nor am I quiet;

I have no rest; but trouble comes.”

 

Galatians 3:23-29

Children of God in Christ

 

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.