Book of Common Prayer

The seventh trumpet: (ii) The sign of the woman

12 ^1-2 Then a huge sign became visible in the sky—the figure of a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars upon her head. She was pregnant, and cried out in her labour and in the pains of bringing forth her child.

The seventh trumpet: (iii) The dragon, the enemy of the woman

^3-4 Then another sign became visible in the sky, and I saw that it was a huge red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, with a diadem upon each of his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars in the sky and hurled them upon the earth. The dragon took his place in front of the woman who was about to give birth to a child, so that as soon as she did so he might devour it.

^5-6 She gave birth to a male child who is to shepherd all the nations “with a rod of iron”. Her child was snatched up to God and to his throne, while the woman fled into the desert where she has a place prepared for her by God’s command. There they will take care of her for twelve hundred and sixty days.

^37-44 While he was talking, a Pharisee invited him to dinner. So he went into his house and sat down at table. The Pharisee noticed with some surprise that he did not wash before the meal. But the Lord said to him, “You Pharisees are fond of cleaning the outside of your cups and dishes, but inside yourselves you are full of greed and wickedness! Have you no sense? Don’t you realise that the one who made the outside is the maker of the inside as well? If you would only make the inside clean by doing good to others, the outside things become clean as a matter of course! But alas for you Pharisees, for you pay out your tithe of mint and rue and every little herb, and lose sight of the justice and love of God. Yet these are the things you ought to have been concerned with—it need not mean leaving the lesser duties undone. Yes, alas for you Pharisees, who love the front seats in the synagogues and having men bow down to you in public! Alas for you, for you are like unmarked graves—men walk over your corruption without knowing it is there.”

Jesus denounces the learned for obscuring the truth

^45-51 Then one of the experts in the Law said to him, “Master, when you say things like this, you are insulting us as well.” And he returned, “Yes, and I do blame you experts in the Law! For you pile up back-breaking burdens for men to bear, but you yourselves will not raise a finger to lift them. Alas for you, for you build memorial tombs for the prophets—the very men whom your fathers murdered. You show clearly enough how you approve your father’s actions. They did the actual killing and you put up a memorial to it. That is why the wisdom of God has said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles; some they will kill and some they will persecute!’ So that the blood of all the prophets shed from the foundation of the earth, from Abel to Zachariah who died between the altar and the sanctuary, shall be charged to this generation!

⁵² “Alas for you experts in the Law, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You have never gone in yourselves and you have hindered everyone else who was at the door!”