Romans 11.25-36
(Epistle)
25For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,
26and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, “There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
27This is my covenant with them, when I will take away their sins.”
28Concerning the Good News, they are enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake.
29For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.
30For as you in time past were disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience,
31even so these also have now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they may also obtain mercy.
32For God has bound all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all.
33Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out!
34“For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”
35“Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?”
36For of him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.
1 Corinthians 4.9-16
(Epistle, Apostles)
9For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last of all, like men sentenced to death. For we are made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men.
10We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You have honor, but we have dishonor.
11Even to this present hour we hunger, thirst, are naked, are beaten, and have no certain dwelling place.
12We toil, working with our own hands. When people curse us, we bless. Being persecuted, we endure.
13Being defamed, we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world, the dirt wiped off by all, even until now.
14I don’t write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children.
15For though you have ten thousand tutors in Christ, you don’t have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the Good News.
16I beg you therefore, be imitators of me.
Matthew 12.1-8
(Gospel)
1At that time, Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the grain fields. His disciples were hungry and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.
2But the Pharisees, when they saw it, said to him, “Behold, your disciples do what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.”
3But he said to them, “Haven’t you read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him:
4how he entered into God’s house and ate the show bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?
5Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath day the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?
6But I tell you that one greater than the temple is here.
7But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you wouldn’t have condemned the guiltless.
8For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Mark 3.13-19
(Gospel, Apostles)
13He went up into the mountain and called to himself those whom he wanted, and they went to him.
14He appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach
15and to have authority to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons:
16Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter);
17James the son of Zebedee; and John, the brother of James, (whom he called Boanerges, which means, Sons of Thunder);
18Andrew; Philip; Bartholomew; Matthew; Thomas; James, the son of Alphaeus; Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot;
19and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him. Then he came into a house.