Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
The Call of Jeremiah
4 The word of the Lord came to me:
5 I chose you before I formed you in the womb;
I set you apart before you were born.(A)
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.(B)
6 But I protested, “Oh no, Lord God! Look, I don’t know how to speak(C) since I am only a youth.”(D)
7 Then the Lord said to me:
Do not say, “I am only a youth,”(E)
for you will go to everyone I send you to
and speak whatever I tell you.(F)
8 Do not be afraid of anyone,(G)
for I will be with you to rescue you.(H)
This is the Lord’s declaration.
9 Then the Lord reached out his hand, touched my mouth,(I) and told me:
Psalm 71
God’s Help in Old Age
1 Lord, I seek refuge in you;
let me never be disgraced.(A)
2 In your justice, rescue and deliver me;
listen closely to me and save me.(B)
3 Be a rock of refuge for me,
where I can always go.
Give the command to save me,
for you are my rock and fortress.(C)
4 Deliver me, my God, from the power of the wicked,
from the grasp of the unjust and oppressive.(D)
5 For you are my hope, Lord God,
my confidence from my youth.(E)
6 I have leaned on you from birth;
you took me from my mother’s womb.(F)
My praise is always about you.(G)
Love: The Superior Way
13 If I speak human or angelic tongues[a] but do not have love,(A) I am a noisy gong(B) or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy(C) and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains(D) but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient,(E) love is kind. Love does not envy,(F) is not boastful, is not arrogant,(G) 5 is not rude, is not self-seeking,(H) is not irritable,(I) and does not keep a record of wrongs. 6 Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth.(J) 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures(K) all things.
8 Love never ends.(L) But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things. 12 For now we see only a reflection[c] as in a mirror, but then face to face.(M) Now I know in part, but then I will know fully,(N) as I am fully known.(O) 13 Now these three remain: faith, hope,(P) and love—but the greatest of these is love.
21 He began by saying to them, “Today as you listen, this Scripture has been fulfilled.”(A)
22 They were all speaking well of him[a] and were amazed by the gracious words that came from his mouth; yet they said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” (B)
23 Then he said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb[b] to me: ‘Doctor, heal yourself. What we’ve heard that took place in Capernaum,(C) do here in your hometown also.’”
24 He also said, “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.(D) 25 But I say to you, there were certainly many widows in Israel in Elijah’s days,(E) when the sky was shut up for three years and six months while a great famine came over all the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them except a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.(F) 27 And in the prophet Elisha’s time, there were many in Israel who had leprosy,[c] and yet not one of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”(G)
28 When they heard this, everyone in the synagogue was enraged. 29 They got up, drove him out of town,(H) and brought him to the edge of the hill that their town was built on, intending to hurl him over the cliff. 30 But he passed right through the crowd and went on his way.(I)
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