Wednesday in Easter

FIRST READING

Micah 7:8-20

Verse 8. Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will arise; though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light. Verse 9. Because I have sinned against Him, I must endure the rage of the LORD, until He argues my case and executes justice for me. He will bring me into the light; I will see His righteousness. Verse 10. Then my enemy will see and will be covered with shame — she who said to me, “Where is the LORD your God?” My eyes will see her; at that time she will be trampled like mud in the streets. Verse 11. The day for rebuilding your walls will come — the day for extending your boundary. Verse 12. On that day they will come to you from Assyria and the cities of Egypt, even from Egypt to the Euphrates, from sea to sea and mountain to mountain. Verse 13. Then the earth will become desolate because of its inhabitants, as the fruit of their deeds. Verse 14. Shepherd with Your staff Your people, the flock of Your inheritance. They live alone in a woodland, surrounded by pastures. Let them graze in Bashan and Gilead, as in the days of old. Verse 15. As in the days when you came out of Egypt, I will show My wonders. Verse 16. Nations will see and be ashamed, deprived of all their might. They will put their hands over their mouths, and their ears will become deaf. Verse 17. They will lick the dust like a snake, like reptiles slithering on the ground. They will come trembling from their strongholds in the presence of the LORD our God; they will tremble in fear of You. Verse 18. Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance — who does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in loving devotion? Verse 19. He will again have compassion on us; He will vanquish our iniquities. You will cast out all our sins into the depths of the sea. Verse 20. You will show faithfulness to Jacob and loving devotion to Abraham, as You swore to our fathers from the days of old.

PSALM

Psalm 95

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD; let us shout to the Rock of our salvation!

Let us enter His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him in song.

For the LORD is a great God, a great King above all gods.

In His hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to Him.

The sea is His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land.

O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.

For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, the sheep under His care. Today, if you hear His voice,

do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, in the day at Massah in the wilderness,

where your fathers tested and tried Me, though they had seen My work.

For forty years I was angry with that generation, and I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known My ways.”

So I swore on oath in My anger, “They shall never enter My rest.”

SECOND READING

Mark 14:26-31

Verse 26. And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Verse 27. Then Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, for it is written: ‘I will strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ Verse 28. But after I have risen, I will go ahead of you into Galilee.” Verse 29. Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I never will.” Verse 30. “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “this very night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times.” Verse 31. But Peter kept insisting, “Even if I have to die with You, I will never deny You.” And all the others said the same thing.