Scripture Readings
The Second Sunday after the Epiphany
For Year B
Scripture readings are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® NIV® ©1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society, used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers. All rights reserved.
Old Testament
Psalm
Epistle Reading
Gospel Reading
Old Testament
The boy Samuel ministered before the LORD
under Eli. In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many
visions.
One night Eli, whose eyes were becoming so weak
that he could barely see, was lying down in his usual place. The lamp of God
had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where
the ark of God was. Then the LORD called Samuel.
Samuel answered, “Here I am.” And he ran to Eli
and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
But Eli said, “I did not call; go back and lie
down.” So he went and lay down.
Again the LORD called, “Samuel!” And Samuel got
up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
“My son,” Eli said, “I did not call; go back and
lie down.”
Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD: The word
of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.
The LORD called Samuel a third time, and Samuel
got up and went to Eli and said, “Here I am; you called me.”
Then Eli realized that the LORD was calling the
boy. So Eli told Samuel, “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak,
LORD, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the
other times, “Samuel! Samuel!”
Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”
[And the LORD said to Samuel: “See, I am about
to do something in Israel that will make the ears of everyone who hears of it
tingle. At that time I will carry out against Eli everything I spoke against
his family—from beginning to end. For I told him that I would judge his family
forever because of the sin he knew about; his sons made themselves contemptible,
and he failed to restrain them. Therefore, I swore to the house of Eli, ‘The
guilt of Eli’s house will never be atoned for by sacrifice or offering.’”
Samuel lay down until morning and then opened the
doors of the house of the LORD. He was afraid to tell Eli the vision, but Eli
called him and said, “Samuel, my son.”
Samuel answered, “Here I am.”
“What was it he said to you?” Eli asked. “Do not
hide it from me. May God deal with you, be it ever so severely, if you hide from
me anything he told you.” So Samuel told him everything, hiding nothing from
him. Then Eli said, “He is the LORD; let him do what is good in his eyes.”
The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he
let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba
recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the LORD. ]
—1 Samuel 3:1-10(11-20), NIV
Go
to the top of this pagePsalm
O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.
—Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18, NIV
Epistle
“Everything is permissible for me”—but not
everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not
be mastered by anything. “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food”—but
God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but
for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from
the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members
of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with
a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute
is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But
he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man
commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body.
Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you,
whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price.
Therefore honor God with your body.
—1 Corinthians 6:12-20, NIV
Gospel
The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee.
Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”
Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town
of Bethsaida. Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses
wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth,
the son of Joseph.”
“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?”
Nathanael asked.
“Come and see,” said Philip.
When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of
him, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is nothing false.”
“How do you know me?” Nathanael asked.
Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still
under the fig tree before Philip called you.”
Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son
of God; you are the King of Israel.”
Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw
you under the fig tree. You shall see greater things than that.” He then added,
“I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending
and descending on the Son of Man.”
—John 1:43-51, NIV
