But his servants approached and said to him, ‘Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, “Wash, and be clean”?’ So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word…
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Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20: 1-17, NRSV On this third Sunday in Lent, our first reading lays out the Ten Commandments as revealed to…
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Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession?He does not retain his anger for ever, because he delights in showing clemency.He will again have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the…
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Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he had made him a long robe with sleeves. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably to him.…
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Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green;in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. Jeremiah 17:5-10, NRSV…
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Give heed to me, O Lord, and listen to what my adversaries say!Is evil a recompense for good? Yet they have dug a pit for my life.Remember how I stood before you to speak good for them, to turn away your wrath from them. Jeremiah 18:18-20, NRSV Jeremiah’s heartfelt plea shows the depth of his feeling in…
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Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom!Listen to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah!Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes;cease to do evil, learn to do good;seek justice, rescue the oppressed,defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Isaiah 1:10, 16-20, NRSV The…
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More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own…
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The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, ‘By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the…
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This very day the Lord your God is commanding you to observe these statutes and ordinances; so observe them diligently with all your heart and with all your soul. Today you have obtained the Lord’s agreement: to be your God; and for you to walk in his ways, to keep his statutes, his commandments, and his ordinances, and to…
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