Scripture Readings
The Season After Pentecost
Proper 4 (9) in Year A
For the Sunday during 29 May through 4 June
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.
Alternate One:
Old Testament
Psalm
Alternate Two:
Old Testament
Psalm
Epistle Reading
Gospel Reading
Old Testament (Alternate One)
This is the account of Noah.
Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people
of his time, and he walked with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was
full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people
on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an
end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am
surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress
wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. This is how you
are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.
Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door
in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to
bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature
that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will
establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons
and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two
of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. Two of
every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that
moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every
kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”
Noah did everything just as God commanded him.
The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and
fifty days. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely
dry.
Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you
and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring out every kind of living creature
that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along
the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in
number upon it.”
So Noah came out, together with his sons and his
wife and his sons’ wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along
the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on the earth—came out of the
ark, one kind after another.
—Genesis 6:9-22; 7:24; 8:14-19, NIV
Go
to the top of this pagePsalm (Alternate One)
God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Come and see the works of the LORD,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear,
he burns the shields with fire.
“Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”
The LORD Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
—Psalm 46, NIV
Old Testament (Alternate Two)
Fix these words of mine in your hearts and
minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach
them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you
walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the
doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days
of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers,
as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.
See, I am setting before you today a blessing and
a curse— the blessing if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am
giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the LORD your God
and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which
you have not known.
—Deuteronomy 11:18-21, 26-28, NIV
Psalm (Alternate Two)
In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge;
let me never be put to shame;
deliver me in your righteousness.
Turn your ear to me,
come quickly to my rescue;
be my rock of refuge,
a strong fortress to save me.
Since you are my rock and my fortress,
for the sake of your name lead and guide me.
Free me from the trap that is set for me,
for you are my refuge.
Into your hands I commit my spirit;
redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth.
How great is your goodness,
which you have stored up for those who fear you,
which you bestow in the sight of men
on those who take refuge in you.
In the shelter of your presence you hide them
from the intrigues of men;
in your dwelling you keep them safe
from accusing tongues.
Praise be to the LORD,
for he showed his wonderful love to me
when I was in a besieged city.
In my alarm I said,
“I am cut off from your sight!”
Yet you heard my cry for mercy
when I called to you for help.
Love the LORD, all his saints!
The LORD preserves the faithful,
but the proud he pays back in full.
Be strong and take heart,
all you who hope in the LORD.
—Psalm 31:1-5, 19-24, NIV
Epistle
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it
is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the
Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed,
a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written:
“The righteous will live by faith.”
There is no difference, for all have sinned and
fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through
the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of
atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice,
because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—
he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and
the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what
principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain
that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. [Is God the God
of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since
there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised
through that same faith. Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all!
Rather, we uphold the law.]
—Romans 1:16-17; 3:22b-28, (29-31), NIV
Gospel
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’
will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father
who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not
prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’
Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine
and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.
The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that
house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone
who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish
man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the
winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
When Jesus had finished saying these things, the
crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority,
and not as their teachers of the law.
—Matthew 7:21-29, NIV
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