Preparing for the Fourth
Sunday after Pentecost

Year A

Prayer

Psalm 69:7-10 [11-15] 16-18

Draw near to me

 

It is for your sake that I have borne reproach,

that shame has covered my face.

I have become a stranger to my kindred,

an alien to my mother’s children.

It is zeal for your house that has consumed me;

the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.

When I humbled my soul with fasting,

they insulted me for doing so.

[When I made sackcloth my clothing,

I became a byword to them.

I am the subject of gossip for those who sit in the gate,

and the drunkards make songs about me.

But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord.

At an acceptable time, O God,

in the abundance of your steadfast love, answer me.

With your faithful help rescue me

from sinking in the mire;

let me be delivered from my enemies

and from the deep waters.

Do not let the flood sweep over me,

or the deep swallow me up,

or the Pit close its mouth over me.]

Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good;

according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.

Do not hide your face from your servant,

for I am in distress—make haste to answer me.

Draw near to me, redeem me,

set me free because of my enemies.

 

Jeremiah 18:12-17

Israel’s stubborn idolatry

 

But they say, “It is no use! We will follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will.”

 

Therefore thus says the Lord:

 

Ask among the nations:

Who has heard the like of this?

The virgin Israel has done

a most horrible thing.

Does the snow of Lebanon leave

the crags of Sirion?

Do the mountain waters run dry,

the cold flowing streams?

But my people have forgotten me,

they burn offerings to a delusion;

they have stumbled in their ways,

in the ancient roads,

and have gone into bypaths,

not the highway,

making their land a horror,

a thing to be hissed at forever.

All who pass by it are horrified

and shake their heads.

Like the wind from the east,

I will scatter them before the enemy.

I will show them my back, not my face,

in the day of their calamity.

 

Hebrews 2:5-9

Exaltation through abasement

 

Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. But someone has testified somewhere,

 

“What are human beings that you are mindful of them,

or mortals, that you care for them?

You have made them for a little while lower than the angels;

you have crowned them with glory and honor,

subjecting all things under their feet.”

 

Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lowerthan the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.