Book of Common Prayer

Psalm 34^[a]

Of David, when he pretended to be crazy before Abimelech, who banished him so that he left.

Psalm 33

Elijah runs to Mount Horeb

19 Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, how he had killed all Baal’s prophets with the sword. ² Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah with this message: “May the gods do whatever they want to me if by this time tomorrow I haven’t made your life like the life of one of them.”

³ Elijah was terrified. He got up and ran for his life. He arrived at Beer-sheba in Judah and left his assistant there. ⁴ He himself went farther on into the desert a day’s journey. He finally sat down under a solitary broom bush. He longed for his own death: “It’s more than enough, Lord! Take my life because I’m no better than my ancestors.” ⁵ He lay down and slept under the solitary broom bush.

Then suddenly a messenger tapped him and said to him, “Get up! Eat something!” ⁶ Elijah opened his eyes and saw flatbread baked on glowing coals and a jar of water right by his head. He ate and drank, and then went back to sleep. ⁷ The Lord’s messenger returned a second time and tapped him. “Get up!” the messenger said. “Eat something, because you have a difficult road ahead of you.” ⁸ Elijah got up, ate and drank, and went refreshed by that food for forty days and nights until he arrived at Horeb, God’s mountain.

Unity of the body of Christ

4 Therefore, as a prisoner for the Lord, I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God. ² Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness, and patience. Accept each other with love, ³ and make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you together. ⁴ You are one body and one spirit, just as God also called you in one hope. ⁵ There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶ and one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all.

⁷ God has given his grace to each one of us measured out by the gift that is given by Christ. ⁸ That’s why scripture says, When he climbed up to the heights, he captured prisoners, and he gave gifts to people.^[a]

⁹ What does the phrase “he climbed up” mean if it doesn’t mean that he had first gone down into the lower regions, the earth? ¹⁰ The one who went down is the same one who climbed up above all the heavens so that he might fill everything.

¹¹ He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. ¹² His purpose was to equip God’s people for the work of serving and building up the body of Christ ¹³ until we all reach the unity of faith and knowledge of God’s Son. God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ. ¹⁴ As a result, we aren’t supposed to be infants any longer who can be tossed and blown around by every wind that comes from teaching with deceitful scheming and the tricks people play to deliberately mislead others. ¹⁵ Instead, by speaking the truth with love, let’s grow in every way into Christ, ¹⁶ who is the head. The whole body grows from him, as it is joined and held together by all the supporting ligaments. The body makes itself grow in that it builds itself up with love as each one does its part.

Feeding of the five thousand

6 After this Jesus went across the Galilee Sea (that is, the Tiberias Sea). ² A large crowd followed him, because they had seen the miraculous signs he had done among the sick. ³ Jesus went up a mountain and sat there with his disciples. ⁴ It was nearly time for Passover, the Jewish festival.

⁵ Jesus looked up and saw the large crowd coming toward him. He asked Philip, “Where will we buy food to feed these people?” ⁶ Jesus said this to test him, for he already knew what he was going to do.

⁷ Philip replied, “More than a half year’s salary^[a] worth of food wouldn’t be enough for each person to have even a little bit.”

⁸ One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said, ⁹ “A youth here has five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that for a crowd like this?”

¹⁰ Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass there. They sat down, about five thousand of them. ¹¹ Then Jesus took the bread. When he had given thanks, he distributed it to those who were sitting there. He did the same with the fish, each getting as much as they wanted. ¹² When they had plenty to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather up the leftover pieces, so that nothing will be wasted.” ¹³ So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves that had been left over by those who had eaten.

¹⁴ When the people saw that he had done a miraculous sign, they said, “This is truly the prophet who is coming into the world.”