Season after Pentecost
Thursday in Season after Pentecost
Thursday, October 5, 2028
Semicontinuous (Track 1)
FIRST READING
Lamentations 3:19-26
Verse 19. Remember my affliction and wandering, the wormwood and the gall. Verse 20. Surely my soul remembers and is humbled within me. Verse 21. Yet I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope: Verse 22. Because of the loving devotion of the LORD we are not consumed, for His mercies never fail. Verse 23. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness! Verse 24. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in Him.” Verse 25. The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him. Verse 26. It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
Complementary (Track 2)
FIRST READING
2 Kings 18:1-8, 28-36
Verse 1. In the third year of the reign of Hoshea son of Elah over Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz became king of Judah. Verse 2. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah. Verse 3. And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, just as his father David had done. Verse 4. He removed the high places, shattered the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles. He also demolished the bronze snake called Nehushtan that Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had burned incense to it. Verse 5. Hezekiah trusted in the LORD, the God of Israel. No king of Judah was like him, either before him or after him. Verse 6. He remained faithful to the LORD and did not turn from following Him; he kept the commandments that the LORD had given Moses. Verse 7. And the LORD was with Hezekiah, and he prospered wherever he went. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and refused to serve him. Verse 8. He defeated the Philistines as far as Gaza and its borders, from watchtower to fortified city. Verse 28. Then the Rabshakeh stood and called out loudly in Hebrew: “Hear the word of the great king, the king of Assyria! Verse 29. This is what the king says: Do not let Hezekiah deceive you; he cannot deliver you from my hand. Verse 30. Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the LORD when he says, ‘The LORD will surely deliver us; this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ Verse 31. Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and his own fig tree and drink water from his own cistern, Verse 32. until I come and take you away to a land like your own— a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards, a land of olive trees and honey— so that you may live and not die. But do not listen to Hezekiah, for he misleads you when he says, ‘The LORD will deliver us.’ Verse 33. Has the god of any nation ever delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria? Verse 34. Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand? Verse 35. Who among all the gods of these lands has delivered his land from my hand? How then can the LORD deliver Jerusalem from my hand?” Verse 36. But the people remained silent and did not answer a word, for Hezekiah had commanded, “Do not answer him.”
PSALM
Psalm 37:1-9
SECOND READING
Jeremiah 52:1-11
Verse 1. Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah. Verse 2. And Zedekiah did evil in the sight of the LORD, just as Jehoiakim had done. Verse 3. For because of the anger of the LORD, all this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until He finally banished them from His presence. And Zedekiah also rebelled against the king of Babylon. Verse 4. So in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his entire army. They encamped outside the city and built a siege wall all around it. Verse 5. And the city was kept under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year. Verse 6. By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food. Verse 7. Then the city was breached; and though the Chaldeans had surrounded the city, all the men of war fled the city by night by way of the gate between the two walls near the king’s garden. They headed toward the Arabah, Verse 8. but the army of the Chaldeans pursued the king and overtook Zedekiah in the plains of Jericho, and his whole army deserted him. Verse 9. The Chaldeans seized the king and brought him up to the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath, where he pronounced judgment on Zedekiah. Verse 10. There at Riblah the king of Babylon slaughtered the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and he also killed all the officials of Judah. Verse 11. Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon, where he kept him in custody until his dying day.
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SECOND READING
Revelation 2:8-11
Verse 8. To the angel of the church in Smyrna write: These are the words of the First and the Last, who died and returned to life. Verse 9. I know your affliction and your poverty — though you are rich! And I am aware of the slander of those who falsely claim to be Jews, but are in fact a synagogue of Satan. Verse 10. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison to test you, and you will suffer tribulation for ten days. Be faithful even unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. Verse 11. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who overcomes will not be harmed by the second death.