Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

Psalm 126

A Song of Ascents.

The Israelites Confess Their Sins

9 Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the children of Israel were assembled with fasting and sackcloth, and there was dirt on them. ² The offspring of Israel separated themselves from all the foreigners and then stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. ³ They stood in their place and read from the Book of the Law of the Lord their God for a fourth of the day. And for another fourth, they confessed and worshipped the Lord their God. ⁴ Jeshua, Bani, Kadmiel, Shebaniah, Bunni, Sherebiah, Bani, and Kenani stood up on the stairs of the Levites and cried with a loud voice to the Lord their God. ⁵ Then the Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said:

“Stand up and bless the Lord your God forever and ever! Let them bless Your glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. ⁶ You alone are the Lord. You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them; and You preserve them all. And the host of heaven worships You.

⁷ “You are the Lord God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans. You gave him the name Abraham ⁸ and found his heart faithful before You. And You made a covenant with him to give him the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, and the Girgashites—to give it to his seed. Indeed, You have fulfilled Your words because You are righteous.

The Choosing of the Twelve Apostles^(A)

¹² In these days He went out to the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God. ¹³ When it was day, He called for His disciples, and of them He chose twelve, whom He named apostles: ¹⁴ Simon, whom He named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip and Bartholomew, ¹⁵ and Matthew and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called the Zealot, ¹⁶ and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Ministering to a Great Crowd^(B)

¹⁷ He came down with them and stood on a level place with a crowd of His disciples and a great crowd of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear Him and be healed of their diseases, ¹⁸ including those who were vexed by unclean spirits. And they were healed. ¹⁹ The whole crowd tried to touch Him, for power went out from Him and healed them all.