Readings for Lent and Easter

¹³ Are any in your community suffering? They should pray. Are any celebrating? They should sing praises to God. ¹⁴ Are any sick? They should call the elders of your church and ask them to pray. They will gather around and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. ¹⁵ Prayers offered in faith will restore them from sickness and bring them to health. The Lord will lift them up from the floor of despair; and if the sickness is due to sin, then God will forgive their sins. ¹⁶ So own up to your sins to one another and pray for one another. In the end, you may be healed. Your prayers are powerful when they are rooted in a righteous life. ¹⁷ Remember Elijah? He was a man, no different from us. He prayed with great intensity asking God to withhold the rain; God answered his prayers and did not allow a single drop of rain to fall for three and a half years. ¹⁸ It did not rain until Elijah prayed again for God to open the skies, when the rain came down and the earth produced a great crop.