Tuesday in Season after Pentecost

Semicontinuous (Track 1)

FIRST READING

Ecclesiastes 4:9-16

Verse 9. Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor. Verse 10. For if one falls down, his companion can lift him up; but pity the one who falls without another to help him up! Verse 11. Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone? Verse 12. And though one may be overpowered, two can resist. Moreover, a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Verse 13. Better is a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows how to take a warning. Verse 14. For the youth has come from the prison to the kingship, though he was born poor in his own kingdom. Verse 15. I saw that all who lived and walked under the sun followed this second one, the youth who succeeded the king. Verse 16. There is no limit to all the people who were before them. Yet the successor will not be celebrated by those who come even later. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

PSALM

Psalm 128

A song of ascents. Blessed are all who fear the LORD, who walk in His ways!

For when you eat the fruit of your labor, blessings and prosperity will be yours.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine flourishing within your house, your sons like olive shoots sitting around your table.

In this way indeed shall blessing come to the man who fears the LORD.

May the LORD bless you from Zion, that you may see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life,

that you may see your children’s children. Peace be upon Israel!

Complementary (Track 2)

FIRST READING

2 Kings 11:21-12:16

Text not available in the Berean Standard Bible.

PSALM

Psalm 139:1-18

For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. O LORD, You have searched me and known me.

You know when I sit and when I rise; You understand my thoughts from afar.

You search out my path and my lying down; You are aware of all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, O LORD.

You hem me in behind and before; You have laid Your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go to escape Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?

If I ascend to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, You are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle by the farthest sea,

even there Your hand will guide me; Your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light become night around me”—

even the darkness is not dark to You, but the night shines like the day, for darkness is as light to You.

For You formed my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well.

My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God, how vast is their sum!

If I were to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; and when I awake, I am still with You.

SECOND READING

James 5:1-6

Verse 1. Come now, you who are rich, weep and wail over the misery to come upon you. Verse 2. Your riches have rotted and moths have eaten your clothes. Verse 3. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and consume your flesh like fire. You have hoarded treasure in the last days. Verse 4. Look, the wages you withheld from the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts. Verse 5. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter. Verse 6. You have condemned and murdered the righteous, who did not resist you.