On this day, October 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted his ninety-five theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace Church, thus beginning the Reformation. He was summoned to stand trial before the twenty-one year old Emperor Charles V and was declared an outlaw. Luther was protected by Frederick of Saxony in the Wartburg castle, where he translated the New Testament into German. Among his works, Martin Luther wrote: “I am much afraid that schools will prove to be the great gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of youth.”

Federer, B. (2003). American minute. St. Louis, MO.: Amerisearch, Inc.

I discovered later,
and I'm still discovering right up to this moment,
that it is only by living completely in this world
that one learns to have faith.
By this-worldliness
I mean living unreservedly in life's duties,
     problems, successes and failures.
In so doing
we throw ourselves completely into the arms of God,
taking seriously,
not our own sufferings,
but those of God in the world.

That, I think, is faith.
--- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

... from here, there and everywhere

23     Take care to know the condition of your flocks,
and pay attention to your herds.
24     For wealth doesn’t last forever,
neither does a crown through all generations.
25     When the hay has been mown, and the new grass appears,
and the mountain greens have been gathered;
26     the lambs will provide your clothing,
the goats will sell for enough to buy a field,
27     and there will be enough goat’s milk
to [buy] food for you and your household
and maintenance for your servant-girls.

Stern, D. H. (1998). Complete Jewish Bible-OE
: An English version of the Tanakh (OT) and
B'rit Hadashah (NT) (1st ed.). Clarksville, Md.: Jewish
New Testament Publications.

                Discernment of faith

     Faith as a grain of mustard seed.… --- Matthew 17:20.

     We have the idea that God rewards us for our faith, it may be so in the initial stages; but we do not earn anything by faith. Faith brings us into right relationship with God and gives God His opportunity. God has frequently to knock the bottom board out of your experience if you are a saint in order to get you into contact with Himself. God wants you to understand that it is a life of faith, not a life of sentimental enjoyment of His blessings. Your earlier life of faith was narrow and intense, settled around a little sun-spot of experience that had as much of sense as of faith in it, full of light and sweetness; then God withdrew His conscious blessings in order to teach you to walk by faith. You are worth far more to Him now than you were in your days of conscious delight and thrilling testimony.

     Faith by its very nature must be tried, and the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character has to be cleared in our own minds. Faith in its actual working out has to go through spells of unsyllabled isolation. Never confound the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life. Much that we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith in the Bible is faith in God against every thing that contradicts Him—‘I will remain true to God’s character whatever He may do.’ “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him”—this is the most sublime utterance of faith in the whole of the Bible.

Chambers, O. (1993). My Utmost for His Highest

I rubbed it
  and the spirit appeared
  (of history) : What you will,
  it said. Die, I said.
  But it would not.

Old gods are no good;
  they are smaller than
  they promise, or else they are large
  like mountains, leaning over
  the soul to admire themselves.

I put the bone back
  in its place and went on
  with my journey. History
  went at my right side
  hungry for the horizon.

Were there towns I came
  to? The sky over
  them was without expression.
  No God there. I would have
  passed on, but a music

detained me in one of
  blood flowing, where two
  people side by side
  under the arc lamps
  lay, from one to the other.

R.S. Thomas, London: Macmillan, 1978. Frequencies

     The categories of loyalty and disloyalty do not enter into disagreements based on reasoned argument.

     There is a common logic that unites Aggadah and Halakhah. The methods that the law student uses to understand when reason, in relation to authority, may apply in legal issues are similar to his approach to the speculative claims of his tradition.

     The Aggadah of Judaism can be found both in the Talmud and the Bible. The same biblical text that Maimonides uses to reject a fundamentalist approach to rabbinic Aggadah is used to justify a nonliteral understanding of prophetic Aggadah. All Aggadah, both rabbinic and prophetic, must take cognizance of universal criteria of truth. When one studies Aggadah susceptible to demonstrative certainty, loyalty is to reason not to authority. The certainties of demonstrative reason transcend the logic of communal authority.

     Maimonides’ attempt at reconciling the Aggadah of Judaism with Aristotle’s physics is not based upon his loyalty to Athens, but upon his commitment to truth. Once a truth has been established through demonstrative reason, it ceases to have any logically significant relationship to the one who established it. The acceptance of truths based upon demonstrative reason does not in any way reveal the cultural or historical loyalties of an individual. The approach of modern thinkers who view knowledge as being historically and culturally determined should not confuse our understanding of how Maimonides perceived the science of Athens. Not only in the Guide but also in the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides expresses this:

     As regards the logic for all these calculations—why we have to add a particular figure or deduct it, how all these rules originated, and how they were discovered and proved—all this is part of the sciences of astronomy and mathematics, about which many books have been composed by Greek sages—books that are still available to the scholars of our time. But the books which had been composed by the Sages of Israel, of the tribe of Issachar, who lived in the time of the Prophets, have not come down to us. But since all these rules have been established by sound and clear proofs, free from any flaw and irrefutable, we need not be concerned about the identity of their authors, whether they be Hebrew Prophets or Gentile sages. For when we have to do with rules and propositions which have been demonstrated by good reasons and have been verified to be true by sound and flawless proofs, we rely upon the author who has discovered them or transmitted them only because of his demonstrated proofs and verified reasoning. (Code of Maimonides, Book 3, Treatise 8: Sanctification of the New Moon (Yale Judaica Series, Vol. 11) )

     Just as there is no “Jewish” astronomy so there is no “Greek” physics. Demonstrative truths claim assent on the basis of their content, and not by the appeal of their author. In his attempt at reconciling the science of his day with Torah, Maimonides did not see himself as attempting to merge two cultural loyalties. He was loyal to the Jewish tradition; he did not believe that this demanded the denial of universal truths. Maimonides was loyal to the authority of Moses and Abraham; he was intellectually open to the rational arguments of Aristotle and al-Farabi. From the perspective of his general position that demonstrative truths are not subject to arguments from authority, we can understand Maimonides’ astonishing claim that there always was an oral tradition of philosophic knowledge in Judaism:

     Know that the many sciences devoted to establishing the truth regarding these matters that have existed in our religious community have perished because of the length of the time that has passed, because of our being dominated by the pagan nations, and because, as we have made clear, it is not permitted to divulge these matters to all people.… Now if there was insistence that the legalistic science of law should not, in view of the harm that will be caused by such a procedure, be perpetuated in a written compilation accessible to all the people, all the more could none of the “mysteries of the Torah” have been set down in writing and be made accessible to the people. On the contrary, they were transmitted by a few men belonging to the elite to a few of the same kind, just as I made clear to you from their sayings: “The mysteries of the Torah may only be transmitted to a counselor, wise in crafts, and so on.” This was the cause that necessitated the disappearance of these great roots of knowledge from the nation.

     Maimonides is showing his student, who is concerned about the conflict of reason with authority, that just as there is—in Judaism—an oral legal tradition which claims his assent on the basis of authority, so, too, there is an oral tradition—in philosophy—which claims his assent on the basis of demonstrative argument. What appears as an exaggerated, provincialistic claim actually states that Judaism always recognized that philosophic truths transcended loyalty to authority. One shows allegiance to the tradition by refusing to allow for the possibility of a contradiction between teachings based upon authority, and demonstrative truths. By maintaining that Judaism from Sinai onward contained both a legal and philosophical oral tradition, Maimonides enables the student of the Guide to realize that one remains a traditional Jew by joining loyalty to the oral law with loyalty to reason. The unity of Halakhah and Aggadah, within the tradition, makes it possible for an individual to unite allegiance to community with respect for truth regardless of the source of the truth. Maimonides’ philosophic explanation of prophetic Aggadah is a traditional mode of explanation since the tradition always recognized the difference between arguments from authority and arguments from reason. Biblical Aggadah is not misinterpreted if it is understood from the perspective of universal criteria of knowledge: The Bible never intended to speak from authority when demonstrative reason was capable of establishing truth.

     The task of the Jewish philosopher, as understood by Maimonides, is to provide the believing Jew with epistemological guidelines which enable him to identify those beliefs which his community accepts on the basis of authority, and those beliefs his community shares with the universal community of rational men. The Jewish philosopher makes it possible for the Jew to believe that it can be compatible to be both a philosopher and a traditional Jew. To do this, he must establish and justify the legitimate place occupied by beliefs based on authority. Beliefs accepted on the basis of authority become legitimate when one realizes that the human intellect has limitations and that demonstrative reason alone is not a sufficient source of knowledge:

     Do not think that what we have said with regard to the insufficiency of the human intellect and its having a limit at which it stops is a statement made in order to conform to Law. For it is something that has already been said and truly grasped by the philosophers without their having concern for a particular doctrine or opinion. And it is a true thing that cannot be doubted except by an individual ignorant of what has already been demonstrated.

Hartman, D. (2009). Maimonides: Torah and Philosophic Quest (See all Torah Books) .

     In 1517 Pope Leo X, empty-pocketed and needing funds to rebuild St. Peter’s basilica, issued a special “sale” of indulgences. The very word “indulgence” tends to convey dubious moral connotations, but these indulgences were particularly questionable. What was an “indulgence”? It was a special sort of forgiveness for sins issued by the pope in consideration of various acts of merit, in this case donations to Leo’s treasury. Indulgences could even be “purchased” on behalf of loved ones in purgatory.

     Dominican friar Johann Tetzel became the pontiff’s peddler, a P. T. Barnum traveling around with a brass-bound chest, a bag of printed receipts, and an enormous cross draped with a papal banner. Whenever Tetzel came to a town, church bells peeled, crowds gathered, and street performers kicked up their heels. Tetzel would set up shop in the nave of the local church, open his bags, and shout, “I have here the passports to lead the human soul to the celestial joys of Paradise. As soon as the coin rings in the bowl, the soul for whom it is paid will fly from purgatory and straight to heaven.”

     He usually exceeded his quota.

     But many were troubled, and when the hard eyes of Martin Luther fell on the indulgences purchased by fellow villagers in Wittenberg, he studied them carefully and pronounced them frauds. At high noon on October 31, 1517, Luther, a 33-year-old university professor, walked to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and tacked to it a document. The door served as the town bulletin board, and Martin Luther had an announcement to post. He called for a “disputation on the power and efficacy of indulgences.”

     A few curious passersby drew near and scanned the words: “Out of love for the faith and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed at Wittenberg under the chairmanship of the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and Sacred Theology. … ” There followed a list of 95 items.

     Luther did not yet know what mighty blows he had struck.

     God is our mighty fortress, always ready to help in times of trouble. Nations rage! Kingdoms fall! But at the voice of God the earth itself melts. The LORD All-Powerful is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress.
--- Psalm 46:1,6,7.

Morgan, R. J. On This Day 365 Amazing And Inspiring Stories About Saints, Martyrs And Heroes

     None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
--- 1 Corinthians 2:8.

     The Pharisees’ other error proved the more tragic. (The Galilean Accent: Being Some Studies In The Christian Life ) They stood for the old ways and the accepted forms of things, and they were simply inhospitable to new light, incredulous that there was any more to find. Their fathers had been given amazing spiritual experiences, and they not only remembered them with gratitude and founded on them, as was fitting, but took it for granted that the way God acted then must be the way he would act now. They forgot that God was alive in their day too. They had no expectation of any further news bursting in to them from God. When rumors of that reached them, at once and without examination they discredited them as impossible and unauthentic. Boldly they laid it down that their poor, passing conceptions were a perfect reflection of God’s thoughts. Their theories were not simply theories but the eternal facts, which must not be altered. Moses said this! Moses did that! they said, and for them that was final. And when Jesus stood forth and said, “No doubt he did, but I now tell you something wholly different and vastly better,” they clapped horrified hands over their outraged ears and would not listen. They resolved that this appalling person must be hustled out of the way. For if these notions of his spread abroad, why, plainly, there is an end of religion!

     [Christ] looked with compassion at these dull, angry souls, shut into their corner of a world, mistaking their dim, smoky rushlights for God’s sun. The prophets grow quite fierce over that habit of either looking back wistfully to the days when God really was God and things really happened, whereas now our lot is cast; or else assuming that what they have is all that they can have.

     But Christ is very gentle. No one, he says, prefers new wine to old, and to be satisfied with the familiar is all but universal. He did not think it strange that many did not take to him at once, and he was content to wait. Nonetheless, he urges us to keep our minds open and our hearts expectant—on the lookout for God. Not to do so, he indicates, is a moral failure that may have tragic consequences. For it was no hideous and ugly sin but just a narrowness of mind, an unwillingness to credit or even consider what was new and unaccustomed, a dislike of being jostled out of their settled lines of thought—that set up Christ’s cross on Calvary!
--- Arthur John Gossip

Wallis, D. (2001). Take Heart: Daily Devotions with the Church's Great Preachers

PROPER 26, MONDAY
YEAR 1

Psalms (Morning) Psalm 56, 57 (58)
Psalms (Evening) Psalm 64, 65
Old Testament Nehemiah 6:1–19
New Testament Revelation 10:1–11
Gospel Matthew 13:36–43

Index of Readings

PSALMS (MORNING)
Psalm 56, 57 (58)

To the leader: according to The Dove on Far-off Terebinths.
Of David. A Miktam, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.

1 Be gracious to me, O God, for people trample on me;
all day long foes oppress me;
2 my enemies trample on me all day long,
for many fight against me.
O Most High, 3 when I am afraid,
I put my trust in you.
4 In God, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I am not afraid;
what can flesh do to me?

5 All day long they seek to injure my cause;
all their thoughts are against me for evil.
6 They stir up strife, they lurk,
they watch my steps.
As they hoped to have my life,
7 so repay them for their crime;
in wrath cast down the peoples, O God!

8 You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your record?
9 Then my enemies will retreat
in the day when I call.
This I know, that God is for me.
10 In God, whose word I praise,
in the LORD, whose word I praise,
11 in God I trust; I am not afraid.
What can a mere mortal do to me?

12 My vows to you I must perform, O God;
I will render thank offerings to you.
13 For you have delivered my soul from death,
and my feet from falling,
so that I may walk before God
in the light of life.

To the leader: Do Not Destroy. Of David.
A Miktam, when he fled from Saul, in the cave.

1 Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
until the destroying storms pass by.
2 I cry to God Most High,
to God who fulfills his purpose for me.
3 He will send from heaven and save me,
he will put to shame those who trample on me. Selah
God will send forth his steadfast love and his faithfulness.

4 I lie down among lions
that greedily devour human prey;
their teeth are spears and arrows,
their tongues sharp swords.

5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.
Let your glory be over all the earth.

6 They set a net for my steps;
my soul was bowed down.
They dug a pit in my path,
but they have fallen into it themselves. Selah
7 My heart is steadfast, O God,
my heart is steadfast.
I will sing and make melody.
8 Awake, my soul!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
I will awake the dawn.
9 I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples;
I will sing praises to you among the nations.
10 For your steadfast love is as high as the heavens;
your faithfulness extends to the clouds.

11 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.
Let your glory be over all the earth.

[ To the leader: Do Not Destroy. Of David. A Miktam.

1 Do you indeed decree what is right, you gods?
Do you judge people fairly?
2 No, in your hearts you devise wrongs;
your hands deal out violence on earth.

3 The wicked go astray from the womb;
they err from their birth, speaking lies.
4 They have venom like the venom of a serpent,
like the deaf adder that stops its ear,
5 so that it does not hear the voice of charmers
or of the cunning enchanter.

6 O God, break the teeth in their mouths;
tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD!
7 Let them vanish like water that runs away;
like grass let them be trodden down and wither.
8 Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime;
like the untimely birth that never sees the sun.
9 Sooner than your pots can feel the heat of thorns,
whether green or ablaze, may he sweep them away!

10 The righteous will rejoice when they see vengeance done;
they will bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 People will say, “Surely there is a reward for the righteous;
surely there is a God who judges on earth.” ]

PSALMS (EVENING)
Psalm 64, 65

To the leader. A Psalm of David.

1 Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint;
preserve my life from the dread enemy.
2 Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked,
from the scheming of evildoers,
3 who whet their tongues like swords,
who aim bitter words like arrows,
4 shooting from ambush at the blameless;
they shoot suddenly and without fear.
5 They hold fast to their evil purpose;
they talk of laying snares secretly,
thinking, “Who can see us?
6 Who can search out our crimes?
We have thought out a cunningly conceived plot.”
For the human heart and mind are deep.

7 But God will shoot his arrow at them;
they will be wounded suddenly.
8 Because of their tongue he will bring them to ruin;
all who see them will shake with horror.
9 Then everyone will fear;
they will tell what God has brought about,
and ponder what he has done.

10 Let the righteous rejoice in the LORD
and take refuge in him.
Let all the upright in heart glory.

To the leader. A Psalm of David. A Song.

1 Praise is due to you,
O God, in Zion;
and to you shall vows be performed,
2 O you who answer prayer!
To you all flesh shall come.
3 When deeds of iniquity overwhelm us,
you forgive our transgressions.
4 Happy are those whom you choose and bring near
to live in your courts.
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
your holy temple.

5 By awesome deeds you answer us with deliverance,
O God of our salvation;
you are the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas.
6 By your strength you established the mountains;
you are girded with might.
7 You silence the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples.
8 Those who live at earth’s farthest bounds are awed by your signs;
you make the gateways of the morning and the evening shout for joy.

9 You visit the earth and water it,
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide the people with grain,
for so you have prepared it.
10 You water its furrows abundantly,
settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
and blessing its growth.
11 You crown the year with your bounty;
your wagon tracks overflow with richness.
12 The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
13 the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy.

OLD TESTAMENT
Nehemiah 6:1–19

6 Now when it was reported to Sanballat and Tobiah and to Geshem the Arab and to the rest of our enemies that I had built the wall and that there was no gap left in it (though up to that time I had not set up the doors in the gates), 2 Sanballat and Geshem sent to me, saying, “Come and let us meet together in one of the villages in the plain of Ono.” But they intended to do me harm. 3 So I sent messengers to them, saying, “I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it to come down to you?” 4 They sent to me four times in this way, and I answered them in the same manner. 5 In the same way Sanballat for the fifth time sent his servant to me with an open letter in his hand. 6 In it was written, “It is reported among the nations—and Geshem also says it—that you and the Jews intend to rebel; that is why you are building the wall; and according to this report you wish to become their king. 7 You have also set up prophets to proclaim in Jerusalem concerning you, ‘There is a king in Judah!’ And now it will be reported to the king according to these words. So come, therefore, and let us confer together.” 8 Then I sent to him, saying, “No such things as you say have been done; you are inventing them out of your own mind” 9 —for they all wanted to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will drop from the work, and it will not be done.” But now, O God, strengthen my hands.

10 One day when I went into the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah son of Mehetabel, who was confined to his house, he said, “Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple, and let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you; indeed, tonight they are coming to kill you.” 11 But I said, “Should a man like me run away? Would a man like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in!” 12 Then I perceived and saw that God had not sent him at all, but he had pronounced the prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. 13 He was hired for this purpose, to intimidate me and make me sin by acting in this way, and so they could give me a bad name, in order to taunt me. 14 Remember Tobiah and Sanballat, O my God, according to these things that they did, and also the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets who wanted to make me afraid.

15 So the wall was finished on the twenty-fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty-two days. 16 And when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem; for they perceived that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. 17 Moreover in those days the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah’s letters came to them. 18 For many in Judah were bound by oath to him, because he was the son-in-law of Shecaniah son of Arah: and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam son of Berechiah. 19 Also they spoke of his good deeds in my presence, and reported my words to him. And Tobiah sent letters to intimidate me.

NEW TESTAMENT
Revelation 10:1–11

10 And I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. 2 He held a little scroll open in his hand. Setting his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, 3 he gave a great shout, like a lion roaring. And when he shouted, the seven thunders sounded. 4 And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.” 5 Then the angel whom I saw standing on the sea and the land

raised his right hand to heaven
6 and swore by him who lives forever and ever,

who created heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it: “There will be no more delay, 7 but in the days when the seventh angel is to blow his trumpet, the mystery of God will be fulfilled, as he announced to his servants the prophets.” 8 Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me again, saying, “Go, take the scroll that is open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.” 9 So I went to the angel and told him to give me the little scroll; and he said to me, “Take it, and eat; it will be bitter to your stomach, but sweet as honey in your mouth.” 10 So I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it; it was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.

11 Then they said to me, “You must prophesy again about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.”

GOSPEL
Matthew 13:36–43

36 Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.” 37 He answered, “The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; 38 the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. 40 Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, 42 and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!

ON THE SAME DATE | VIGIL | HOLY DAY
EVE OF ALL SAINTS
EVENING PRAYER
YEARS 1 & 2

Psalms Psalm 34
Old Testament Wisdom of Solomon 3:1–9
New Testament Revelation 19:1, 4–10

Index of Readings

PSALMS
Psalm 34

Of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech,
so that he drove him out, and he went away.

1 I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
2 My soul makes its boast in the LORD;
let the humble hear and be glad.
3 O magnify the LORD with me,
and let us exalt his name together.

4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me,
and delivered me from all my fears.
5 Look to him, and be radiant;
so your faces shall never be ashamed.
6 This poor soul cried, and was heard by the LORD,
and was saved from every trouble.
7 The angel of the LORD encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.
8 O taste and see that the LORD is good;
happy are those who take refuge in him.
9 O fear the LORD, you his holy ones,
for those who fear him have no want.
10 The young lions suffer want and hunger,
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

11 Come, O children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
12 Which of you desires life,
and covets many days to enjoy good?
13 Keep your tongue from evil,
and your lips from speaking deceit.
14 Depart from evil, and do good;
seek peace, and pursue it.

15 The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous,
and his ears are open to their cry.
16 The face of the LORD is against evildoers,
to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
17 When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears,
and rescues them from all their troubles.
18 The LORD is near to the brokenhearted,
and saves the crushed in spirit.

19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the LORD rescues them from them all.
20 He keeps all their bones;
not one of them will be broken.
21 Evil brings death to the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
22 The LORD redeems the life of his servants;
none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

OLD TESTAMENT
Wisdom of Solomon 3:1–9

3 But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
2 In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be a disaster,
3 and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.
4 For though in the sight of others they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality.
5 Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
6 like gold in the furnace he tried them,
and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.
7 In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,
and will run like sparks through the stubble.
8 They will govern nations and rule over peoples,
and the Lord will reign over them forever.
9 Those who trust in him will understand truth,
and the faithful will abide with him in love,
because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones,
and he watches over his elect.

NEW TESTAMENT
Revelation 19:1, 4–10

19 After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying,

“Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power to our God,

4 And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who is seated on the throne, saying, “Amen. Hallelujah!”

5 And from the throne came a voice saying,

“Praise our God,
all you his servants,
and all who fear him,
small and great.”

6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying out,

“Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has made herself ready;
8 to her it has been granted to be clothed
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are true words of God.” 10 Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your comrades who hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

The Episcopal Church. Book of Common Prayer Lectionary

     The Dead Sea Scrolls have made their way online some 2,000 years after they were written through a partnership between Google and Israel’s national museum.

     The important documents are available in searchable, high-resolution images, accompanied by informative videos, background information, and historical data. So far five of the scrolls have been digitized, including the biblical Book of Isaiah, the Temple Scroll, and three others.

     Managing Director of Google’s R&D Center in Israel, Professor Yossi Matias said they plan to add additional Dead Sea Scroll documents to the site in the future. The AP says nearly all the scrolls will be online by 2016. (PC Magazine)

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