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TODAY’S READINGS
Jeremiah 17:5-10
Psalm 1
1 Corinthians 15:12-20
Luke 6:12-26

FIRST READING: Jeremiah 17:5-10
⁵Thus says the Lord:
Cursed are those who trust in mere mortals and make mere flesh their strength, whose hearts turn away from the Lord. ⁶They shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when relief comes. They shall live in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

⁷Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. ⁸They 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.

⁹The heart is devious above all else; it is perverse—who can understand it? ¹⁰I the Lord test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways, according to the fruit of their doings.

RESPONSIVE READING: Psalm 1
¹ Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
or sit in the seat of scoffers;
² but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law they meditate day and night.
³ They are like trees planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
⁴ The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
⁶ for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

SECOND READING: 1 Corinthians 15:12-20
¹²Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; ¹⁴and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. ¹⁵We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. ¹⁶For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. ¹⁷If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. ¹⁸Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. ¹⁹If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. ²⁰But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.

GOSPEL: Luke 6:12-26
¹²Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. ¹³And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles:¹⁴Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, ¹⁵and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, ¹⁶and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

¹⁷He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. ¹⁸They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. ¹⁹And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

²⁰Then he looked up at his disciples and said:
‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
²¹‘Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.
‘Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

²²‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. ²³Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.

²⁴‘But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. ²⁵‘Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. ‘Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. ²⁶‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.  Used by permission.