Open Word

Semicontinuous (Track 1)

FIRST READING

Joshua 24:25-33

Verse 25. On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he established for them a statute and ordinance. Verse 26. Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak that was near the sanctuary of the LORD. Verse 27. And Joshua said to all the people, “You see this stone. It will be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words the LORD has spoken to us, and it will be a witness against you if you ever deny your God.” Verse 28. Then Joshua sent the people away, each to his own inheritance. Verse 29. Some time later, Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of 110. Verse 30. And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. Verse 31. Israel had served the LORD throughout the days of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had experienced all the works that the LORD had done for Israel. Verse 32. And the bones of Joseph, which the Israelites had brought up out of Egypt, were buried at Shechem in the plot of land that Jacob had purchased from the sons of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for a hundred pieces of silver. So it became an inheritance for Joseph’s descendants. Verse 33. Eleazar son of Aaron also died, and they buried him at Gibeah, which had been given to his son Phinehas in the hill country of Ephraim.

PSALM

Psalm 78

A Maskil of Asaph. Give ear, O my people, to my instruction; listen to the words of my mouth.

I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things hidden from the beginning,

that we have heard and known and our fathers have relayed to us.

We will not hide them from their children but will declare to the next generation the praises of the LORD and His might and the wonders He has performed.

For He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which He commanded our fathers to teach to their children,

that the coming generation would know them— even children yet to be born— to arise and tell their own children

that they should put their confidence in God, not forgetting His works, but keeping His commandments.

Then they will not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, whose heart was not loyal, whose spirit was not faithful to God.

The archers of Ephraim turned back on the day of battle.

They failed to keep God’s covenant and refused to live by His law.

They forgot what He had done, the wonders He had shown them.

He worked wonders before their fathers in the land of Egypt, in the region of Zoan.

He split the sea and brought them through; He set the waters upright like a wall.

He led them with a cloud by day and with a light of fire all night.

He split the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as abundant as the seas.

He brought streams from the stone and made water flow down like rivers.

But they continued to sin against Him, rebelling in the desert against the Most High.

They willfully tested God by demanding the food they craved.

They spoke against God, saying, “Can God really prepare a table in the wilderness?

When He struck the rock, water gushed out and torrents raged. But can He also give bread or supply His people with meat?”

Therefore the LORD heard and was filled with wrath; so a fire was kindled against Jacob, and His anger flared against Israel,

because they did not believe God or rely on His salvation.

Yet He commanded the clouds above and opened the doors of the heavens.

He rained down manna for them to eat; He gave them grain from heaven.

Man ate the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance.

He stirred the east wind from the heavens and drove the south wind by His might.

He rained meat on them like dust, and winged birds like the sand of the sea.

He felled them in the midst of their camp, all around their dwellings.

So they ate and were well filled, for He gave them what they craved.

Yet before they had filled their desire, with the food still in their mouths,

God’s anger flared against them, and He put to death their strongest and subdued the young men of Israel.

In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe.

So He ended their days in futility, and their years in sudden terror.

When He slew them, they would seek Him; they repented and searched for God.

And they remembered that God was their Rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer.

But they deceived Him with their mouths, and lied to Him with their tongues.

Their hearts were disloyal to Him, and they were unfaithful to His covenant.

And yet He was compassionate; He forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them. He often restrained His anger and did not unleash His full wrath.

He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.

How often they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!

Again and again they tested God and provoked the Holy One of Israel.

They did not remember His power — the day He redeemed them from the adversary,

when He performed His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the fields of Zoan.

He turned their rivers to blood, and from their streams they could not drink.

He sent swarms of flies that devoured them, and frogs that devastated them.

He gave their crops to the grasshopper, the fruit of their labor to the locust.

He killed their vines with hailstones and their sycamore-figs with sleet.

He abandoned their cattle to the hail and their livestock to bolts of lightning.

He unleashed His fury against them, wrath, indignation, and calamity— a band of destroying angels.

He cleared a path for His anger; He did not spare them from death but delivered their lives to the plague.

He struck all the firstborn of Egypt, the virility in the tents of Ham.

He led out His people like sheep and guided them like a flock in the wilderness.

He led them safely, so they did not fear, but the sea engulfed their enemies.

He brought them to His holy land, to the mountain His right hand had acquired.

He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.

But they tested and disobeyed God Most High, for they did not keep His decrees.

They turned back and were faithless like their fathers, twisted like a faulty bow.

They enraged Him with their high places and provoked His jealousy with their idols.

On hearing it, God was furious and rejected Israel completely.

He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh, the tent He had pitched among men.

He delivered His strength to captivity, and His splendor to the hand of the adversary.

He surrendered His people to the sword because He was enraged by His heritage.

Fire consumed His young men, and their maidens were left without wedding songs.

His priests fell by the sword, but their widows could not lament.

Then the Lord awoke as from sleep, like a mighty warrior overcome by wine.

He beat back His foes; He put them to everlasting shame.

He rejected the tent of Joseph and refused the tribe of Ephraim.

But He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loved.

He built His sanctuary like the heights, like the earth He has established forever.

He chose David His servant and took him from the sheepfolds;

from tending the ewes He brought him to be shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His inheritance.

So David shepherded them with integrity of heart and guided them with skillful hands.

Complementary (Track 2)

FIRST READING

Amos 8:7-14

Verse 7. The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget any of their deeds. Verse 8. Will not the land quake for this, and all its dwellers mourn? All of it will swell like the Nile; it will surge and then subside like the Nile in Egypt. Verse 9. And in that day, declares the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the daytime. Verse 10. I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation. I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make it like a time of mourning for an only son, and its outcome like a bitter day. Verse 11. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land — not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the LORD. Verse 12. People will stagger from sea to sea and roam from north to east, seeking the word of the LORD, but they will not find it. Verse 13. In that day the lovely young women — the young men as well — will faint from thirst. Verse 14. Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria and say, ‘As surely as your god lives, O Dan,’ or, ‘As surely as the way of Beersheba lives’— they will fall, never to rise again.”

PSALM

Psalm 63

A Psalm of David, when he was in the Wilderness of Judah. O God, You are my God. Earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You. My body yearns for You in a dry and weary land without water.

So I have seen You in the sanctuary and beheld Your power and glory.

Because Your loving devotion is better than life, my lips will glorify You.

So I will bless You as long as I live; in Your name I will lift my hands.

My soul is satisfied as with the richest of foods; with joyful lips my mouth will praise You.

When I remember You on my bed, I think of You through the watches of the night.

For You are my help; I will sing for joy in the shadow of Your wings.

My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.

But those who seek my life to destroy it will go into the depths of the earth.

They will fall to the power of the sword; they will become a portion for foxes.

But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by Him will exult, for the mouths of liars will be shut.

SECOND READING

1 Corinthians 14:20-25

Verse 20. Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil be infants, but in your thinking be mature. Verse 21. It is written in the Law: “By strange tongues and foreign lips I will speak to this people, but even then they will not listen to Me, says the Lord.” Verse 22. Tongues, then, are a sign, not for believers, but for unbelievers. Prophecy, however, is for believers, not for unbelievers. Verse 23. So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and some who are uninstructed or some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your minds? Verse 24. But if an unbeliever or uninstructed person comes in while everyone is prophesying, he will be convicted and called to account by all, Verse 25. and the secrets of his heart will be made known. So he will fall facedown and worship God, proclaiming, “God is truly among you!”