Readings for Sunday, February 2, 2025

FIRST READING        Psalm 92

¹ It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praises to your name, O Most High,
² to declare your steadfast love in the morning
and your faithfulness by night,
³ to the music of the lute and the harp,
to the melody of the lyre.
⁴ For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
at the works of your hands I sing for joy.
⁵ How great are your works, O Lord!
Your thoughts are very deep!
⁶ The dullard cannot know;
the stupid cannot understand this:
⁷ though the wicked sprout like grass
and all evildoers flourish,
they are doomed to destruction forever,
⁸ but you, O Lord, are on high forever.
⁹ For your enemies, O Lord,
for your enemies shall perish;
all evildoers shall be scattered.
¹⁰ But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox;
you have anointed me with fresh oil.
¹¹ My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies;
my ears have heard the doom of my evil assailants.
¹² The righteous flourish like the palm tree
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
¹³ They are planted in the house of the Lord;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
¹⁴ In old age they still produce fruit;
they are always green and full of sap,
¹⁵ showing that the Lord is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.

SECOND READING        1 Corinthians 13:1-13

¹ If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away all my possessions and if I hand over my body so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing. ⁴ Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; ⁶ it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. ⁷ It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ⁸ Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. ⁹ For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, ¹⁰ but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. ¹² For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³ And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love.

GOSPEL READING              Luke 6:1-16

¹ One Sabbath while Jesus was going through some grain fields, his disciples plucked some heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. ² But some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?” ³ Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? ⁴ How he entered the house of God and took and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and gave some to his companions?” ⁵ Then he said to them, “The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” ⁶ On another Sabbath he entered the synagogue and taught, and there was a man there whose right hand was withered. ⁷ The scribes and the Pharisees were watching him to see whether he would cure on the Sabbath, so that they might find grounds to bring an accusation against him. ⁸ But he knew what they were thinking, and he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come and stand in the middle.” He got up and stood there. ⁹ Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” ¹⁰ After looking around at all of them, he said to him, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was restored. ¹¹ But they were filled with fury and began discussing with one another what they might do to Jesus. ¹² Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God. ¹³ And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: ¹⁴ Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, ¹⁵ and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, ¹⁶ and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.