Scripture Readings

The Season After Pentecost
Proper 12 (17) in Year B
For the Sunday during 24 through 30 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)

     In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.
     One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “Isn’t this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite?” Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (She had purified herself from her uncleanness.) Then she went back home. The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”
     So David sent this word to Joab: “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent him to David. When Uriah came to him, David asked him how Joab was, how the soldiers were and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” So Uriah left the palace, and a gift from the king was sent after him. But Uriah slept at the entrance to the palace with all his master’s servants and did not go down to his house.
     When David was told, “Uriah did not go home,” he asked him, “Haven’t you just come from a distance? Why didn’t you go home?”
     Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are staying in tents, and my master Joab and my lord’s men are camped in the open fields. How could I go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife? As surely as you live, I will not do such a thing!”
     Then David said to him, “Stay here one more day, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next. At David’s invitation, he ate and drank with him, and David made him drunk. But in the evening Uriah went out to sleep on his mat among his master’s servants; he did not go home.
     In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. In it he wrote, “Put Uriah in the front line where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die.”
—2 Samuel 11:1-15, NIV

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Psalm (Alternate One)

All you have made will praise you, O LORD;
     your saints will extol you.
They will tell of the glory of your kingdom
     and speak of your might,
so that all men may know of your mighty acts
     and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
     and your dominion endures through all generations.
The LORD is faithful to all his promises
     and loving toward all he has made.
The LORD upholds all those who fall
     and lifts up all who are bowed down.
The eyes of all look to you,
     and you give them their food at the proper time.
You open your hand
     and satisfy the desires of every living thing.
The LORD is righteous in all his ways
     and loving toward all he has made.
The LORD is near to all who call on him,
     to all who call on him in truth.
—Psalm 145:10-18, NIV

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Old Testament (Alternate Two)

     A man came from Baal Shalishah, bringing the man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along with some heads of new grain. “Give it to the people to eat,” Elisha said.
     “How can I set this before a hundred men?” his servant asked.
     But Elisha answered, “Give it to the people to eat. For this is what the LORD says: ‘They will eat and have some left over.’” Then he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of the LORD.
—2 Kings 4:42-44, NIV

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Psalm (Alternate Two)

The fool says in his heart,
     “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, their deeds are vile;
     there is no one who does good.
The LORD looks down from heaven
     on the sons of men
to see if there are any who understand,
     any who seek God.
All have turned aside,
     they have together become corrupt;
there is no one who does good,
     not even one.
Will evildoers never learn—
     those who devour my people as men eat bread
     and who do not call on the LORD?
There they are, overwhelmed with dread,
     for God is present in the company of the righteous.
You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,
     but the LORD is their refuge.
Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion!
     When the LORD restores the fortunes of his people,
     let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!
—Psalm 14, NIV

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Epistle

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
—Ephesians 3:14-21, NIV

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Gospel

     Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Feast was near.
     When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
     Philip answered him, “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
     Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them. Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
     When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
     After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
     When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. When they had rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water; and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.
—John 6:1-21, NIV

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