Scripture Readings

The Season After Pentecost
Proper 8 (13) in Year A
For the Sunday during 26 June through 2 July

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)

     Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”
     “Here I am,” he replied.
     Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.”
     Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”
     Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”
     “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.
     “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”
     Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together.
     When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!”
     “Here I am,” he replied.
     “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
     Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”
—Genesis 22:1-14, NIV

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Psalm (Alternate One)

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?
     How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
     and every day have sorrow in my heart?
     How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.
     Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;
my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
     and my foes will rejoice when I fall.
But I trust in your unfailing love;
     my heart rejoices in your salvation.
I will sing to the LORD,
     for he has been good to me.
—Psalm 13, NIV

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Old Testament (Alternate Two)

Then the prophet Jeremiah replied to the prophet Hananiah before the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the LORD. He said, “Amen! May the LORD do so! May the LORD fulfill the words you have prophesied by bringing the articles of the LORD’s house and all the exiles back to this place from Babylon. Nevertheless, listen to what I have to say in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people: From early times the prophets who preceded you and me have prophesied war, disaster and plague against many countries and great kingdoms. But the prophet who prophesies peace will be recognized as one truly sent by the LORD only if his prediction comes true.”
—Jeremiah 28:5-9, NIV

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Psalm (Alternate Two)

I will sing of the LORD’s great love forever;
     with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations.
I will declare that your love stands firm forever,
     that you established your faithfulness in heaven itself.
You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one,
     I have sworn to David my servant,
’I will establish your line forever
     and make your throne firm through all generations.’” Selah
Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you,
     who walk in the light of your presence, O LORD.
They rejoice in your name all day long;
     they exult in your righteousness.
For you are their glory and strength,
     and by your favor you exalt our horn.
Indeed, our shield belongs to the LORD,
     our king to the Holy One of Israel.
—Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18, NIV

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Epistle

     Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
     What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
     I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
—Romans 6:12-23, NIV

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Gospel

“He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”
—Matthew 10:40-42, NIV

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