Tuesday 26 August 2025

1For you yourselves know,brothers, our visit to you wasn’t in vain,2but having suffered before and been shamefully treated,as you know, at Philippi,we grew bold in our God to tell you the Good News of God in much conflict.3For our exhortation is not of error,nor of uncleanness, nor in deception.4But even as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News, so we speak—not as pleasing men, but God, who tests our hearts.5For neither were we at any time found using words of flattery,as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness (God is witness),6nor seeking glory from men (neither from you nor from others),when we might have claimed authority as apostles of Christ.7But we were gentle among you,like a nursing mother cherishes her own children.

8Even so, affectionately longing for you,we were well pleased to impart to you not the Good News of God only,but also our own souls,because you had become very dear to us.

1Lord, you have searched me,and you know me.2You know my sitting down and my rising up.You perceive my thoughts from afar.3You search out my path and my lying down,and are acquainted with all my ways.

4For there is not a word on my tongue,but behold, Lord, you know it altogether.5You hem me in behind and before.You laid your hand on me.6This knowledge is beyond me.It’s lofty.I can’t attain it.

23“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!For you tithe mint,dill, and cumin,and have left undone the weightier matters of the law:justice, mercy, and faith.But you ought to have done these,and not to have left the other undone.24You blind guides, who strain out a gnat,and swallow a camel!

25“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!For you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter,but within they are full of extortion and unrighteousness.26You blind Pharisee,first clean the inside of the cup and of the platter,that its outside may become clean also.