Sunday 3 February 2019

4Now the Lord’s word came to me, saying,

5“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.Before you were born, I sanctified you.I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

· · · verses 6–16 are not read17“You therefore put your belt on your waist,arise, and say to them all that I command you.Don’t be dismayed at them, lest I dismay you before them.18For behold, I have made you today a fortified city,an iron pillar, and bronze walls against the whole land—against the kings of Judah,against its princes,against its priests,and against the people of the land.19They will fight against you,but they will not prevail against you;for I am with you”, says the Lord, “to rescue you.”

1In you, Lord, I take refuge.Never let me be disappointed.2Deliver me in your righteousness, and rescue me.Turn your ear to me, and save me.

3Be to me a rock of refuge to which I may always go.Give the command to save me,for you are my rock and my fortress.4Rescue me, my God, from the hand of the wicked,from the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man.

5For you are my hope, Lord GOD,my confidence from my youth.6I have relied on you from the womb.You are he who took me out of my mother’s womb.I will always praise you.

15My mouth will tell about your righteousness,and of your salvation all day,though I don’t know its full measure.17God, you have taught me from my youth.Until now, I have declared your wondrous works.

31But earnestly desire the best gifts.Moreover, I show a most excellent way to you.

1If I speak with the languages of men and of angels,but don’t have love,I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.2If I have the gift of prophecy,and know all mysteries and all knowledge,and if I have all faith,so as to remove mountains,but don’t have love, I am nothing.3If I give away all my goods to feed the poor,and if I give my body to be burned,but don’t have love,it profits me nothing.

4Love is patient and is kind.Love doesn’t envy.Love doesn’t brag, is not proud,5doesn’t behave itself inappropriately,doesn’t seek its own way,is not provoked, takes no account of evil;6doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness,but rejoices with the truth;7bears all things, believes all things,hopes all things, and endures all things.

8Love never fails.But where there are prophecies,they will be done away with.Where there are various languages, they will cease.Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.9For we know in part and we prophesy in part;10but when that which is complete has come,then that which is partial will be done away with.11When I was a child,I spoke as a child,I felt as a child,I thought as a child.Now that I have become a man,I have put away childish things.12For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.Now I know in part,but then I will know fully,even as I was also fully known.13But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three.The greatest of these is love.

21He began to tell them,“Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

22All testified about him and wondered at the gracious wordswhich proceeded out of his mouth;and they said, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”

23He said to them, “Doubtless you will tell me this proverb,‘Physician, heal yourself!Whatever we have heard done at Capernaum,do also here in your hometown.’”24He said, “Most certainly I tell you,no prophet is acceptable in his hometown.25But truly I tell you,there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah,when the sky was shut up three years and six months,when a great famine came over all the land.26Elijah was sent to none of them,except to Zarephath,in the land of Sidon,to a woman who was a widow.27There were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet,yet not one of them was cleansed,except Naaman, the Syrian.”

28They were all filled with wrath in the synagogue as they heard these things.29They rose up, threw him out of the city,and led him to the brow of the hillthat their city was built on,that they might throw him off the cliff.30But he, passing through the middle of them, went his way.