Thursday in Season after Pentecost

Semicontinuous (Track 1)

FIRST READING

Job 17:1-16

Verse 1. “My spirit is broken; my days are extinguished; the grave awaits me. Verse 2. Surely mockers surround me, and my eyes must gaze at their rebellion. Verse 3. Give me, I pray, the pledge You demand. Who else will be my guarantor? Verse 4. You have closed their minds to understanding; therefore You will not exalt them. Verse 5. If a man denounces his friends for a price, the eyes of his children will fail. Verse 6. He has made me a byword among the people, a man in whose face they spit. Verse 7. My eyes have grown dim with grief, and my whole body is but a shadow. Verse 8. The upright are appalled at this, and the innocent are stirred against the godless. Verse 9. Yet a righteous one holds to his way, and the one with clean hands grows stronger. Verse 10. But come back and try again, all of you. For I will not find a wise man among you. Verse 11. My days have passed; my plans are broken off — even the desires of my heart. Verse 12. They have turned night into day, making light seem near in the face of darkness. Verse 13. If I look for Sheol as my home, if I spread out my bed in darkness, Verse 14. and say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother,’ or ‘My sister,’ Verse 15. where then is my hope? Who can see any hope for me? Verse 16. Will it go down to the gates of Sheol? Will we go down together into the dust?”

PSALM

Psalm 22:1-15

For the choirmaster. To the tune of “The Doe of the Dawn.” A Psalm of David. My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me, so far from my words of groaning?

I cry out by day, O my God, but You do not answer, and by night, but I have no rest.

Yet You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.

In You our fathers trusted; they trusted and You delivered them.

They cried out to You and were set free; they trusted in You and were not disappointed.

But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.

All who see me mock me; they sneer and shake their heads:

“He trusts in the LORD, let the LORD deliver him; let the LORD rescue him, since He delights in him.”

Yet You brought me forth from the womb; You made me secure at my mother’s breast.

From birth I was cast upon You; from my mother’s womb You have been my God.

Be not far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

They open their jaws against me like lions that roar and maul.

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed. My heart is like wax; it melts away within me.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death.

Complementary (Track 2)

FIRST READING

Deuteronomy 5:1-21

Verse 1. Then Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances that I declare in your hearing this day. Learn them and observe them carefully. Verse 2. The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. Verse 3. He did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with all of us who are alive here today. Verse 4. The LORD spoke with you face to face out of the fire on the mountain. Verse 5. At that time I was standing between the LORD and you to declare to you the word of the LORD, because you were afraid of the fire and would not go up the mountain. And He said: Verse 6. “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Verse 7. You shall have no other gods before Me. Verse 8. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath. Verse 9. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, Verse 10. but showing loving devotion to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments. Verse 11. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave anyone unpunished who takes His name in vain. Verse 12. Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. Verse 13. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, Verse 14. but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God, on which you must not do any work— neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox or donkey or any of your livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest as you do. Verse 15. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. That is why the LORD your God has commanded you to keep the Sabbath day. Verse 16. Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. Verse 17. You shall not murder. Verse 18. You shall not commit adultery. Verse 19. You shall not steal. Verse 20. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Verse 21. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house or field, or his manservant or maidservant, or his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

PSALM

Psalm 90:12-17

So teach us to number our days, that we may present a heart of wisdom.

Return, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on Your servants.

Satisfy us in the morning with Your loving devotion, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

Make us glad for as many days as You have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen evil.

May Your work be shown to Your servants, and Your splendor to their children.

May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish for us the work of our hands— yes, establish the work of our hands!

SECOND READING

Hebrews 3:7-19

Verse 7. Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear His voice, Verse 8. do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness, Verse 9. where your fathers tested and tried Me, and for forty years saw My works. Verse 10. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known My ways.’ Verse 11. So I swore on oath in My anger, ‘They shall never enter My rest.’” Verse 12. See to it, brothers, that none of you has a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from the living God. Verse 13. But exhort one another daily, as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. Verse 14. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly to the end the assurance we had at first. Verse 15. As it has been said: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion.” Verse 16. For who were the ones who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? Verse 17. And with whom was God angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? Verse 18. And to whom did He swear that they would never enter His rest? Was it not to those who disobeyed? Verse 19. So we see that it was because of their unbelief that they were unable to enter.