Reading 1, Deut 18:13-18 : You must be blameless before the Lord
13 | You shall be blameless before the LORD your God. |
14 | For these nations, which you are about to dispossess, give heed to soothsayers and to diviners; but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you so to do. |
15 | "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brethren -- him you shall heed -- |
16 | just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, `Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, or see this great fire any more, lest I die.' |
17 | And the LORD said to me, `They have rightly said all that they have spoken. |
18 | I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brethren; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. |
Reading 2, Is 48:12-20 : There is no peace, for the wicked.
12 | "Hearken to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am He, I am the first, and I am the last. |
13 | My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together. |
14 | "Assemble, all of you, and hear! Who among them has declared these things? The LORD loves him; he shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arm shall be against the Chalde'ans. |
15 | I, even I, have spoken and called him, I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way. |
16 | Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there." And now the Lord GOD has sent me and his Spirit. |
17 | Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. |
18 | O that you had hearkened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; |
19 | your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me." |
20 | Go forth from Babylon, flee from Chalde'a, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it forth to the end of the earth; say, "The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!" |
Reading 3, Heb 6: 9 -15 : Eternal priest according to the order of Melchizadek
9 | Though we speak thus, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things that belong to salvation. |
10 | For God is not so unjust as to overlook your work and the love which you showed for his sake in serving the saints, as you still do. |
11 | And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope until the end, |
12 | so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. |
13 | For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, |
14 | saying, "Surely I will bless you and multiply you." |
15 | And thus Abraham, having patiently endured, obtained the promise. |
Gospel, Jn 3:14 - 21 : You are to be born again in water and spirit.
14 | And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, |
15 | that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." |
16 | For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. |
17 | For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. |
18 | He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. |
19 | And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. |
20 | For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. |
21 | But he who does what is true comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God. |