Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹⁰ All living things shall thank you, Lord, and your people will bless you. ¹¹ They will talk together about the glory of your kingdom and mention examples of your power. ¹² They will tell about your miracles and about the majesty and glory of your reign. ¹³ For your kingdom never ends. You rule generation after generation.

¹⁴ The Lord lifts the fallen and those bent beneath their loads. ¹⁵ The eyes of all mankind look up to you for help; you give them their food as they need it. ¹⁶ You constantly satisfy the hunger and thirst of every living thing.

¹⁷ The Lord is fair in everything he does and full of kindness. ¹⁸ He is close to all who call on him sincerely.

³⁸ Elisha now returned to Gilgal, but there was a famine in the land. One day as he was teaching the young prophets, he said to Gehazi, “Make some stew for supper for these men.”

³⁹ One of the young men went out into the field to gather vegetables and came back with some wild gourds. He shredded them and put them into a kettle without realizing that they were poisonous. ⁴⁰ But after the men had eaten a bite or two they cried out, “Oh, sir, there’s poison in this stew!”

⁴¹ “Bring me some meal,” Elisha said. He threw it into the kettle and said, “Now it’s all right! Go ahead and eat!” And then it didn’t harm them.

³¹ Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus to eat. ³² “No,” he said, “I have some food you don’t know about.”

³³ “Who brought it to him?” the disciples asked each other.

³⁴ Then Jesus explained: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God who sent me, and from finishing his work. ³⁵ Do you think the work of harvesting will not begin until the summer ends four months from now? Look around you! Vast fields of human souls are ripening all around us, and are ready now for reaping. ³⁶ The reapers will be paid good wages and will be gathering eternal souls into the granaries of heaven! What joys await the sower and the reaper, both together! ³⁷ For it is true that one sows and someone else reaps. ³⁸ I sent you to reap where you didn’t sow; others did the work, and you received the harvest.”