Thursday, June 13 | St. Andrew's Anglican Church

Psalm 70

¹ Make haste, O God, to deliver me!
    O Lord, make haste to help me!
²Let them be put to shame and confusion
    who seek my life!
    Let them be turned back and brought to dishonor
    who delight in my hurt!
³Let them turn back because of their shame
    who say, “Aha, Aha!”
⁴May all who seek you
    rejoice and be glad in you!
    May those who love your salvation
    say evermore, “God is great!”
⁵But I am poor and needy;
    hasten to me, O God!
    You are my help and my deliverer;
    O Lord, do not delay!

Psalm 71

¹ In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;
    let me never be put to shame!
²In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
    incline your ear to me, and save me!
³Be to me a rock of refuge,
    to which I may continually come;
    you have given the command to save me,
    for you are my rock and my fortress.
⁴Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
    from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.
⁵For you, O Lord, are my hope,
    my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
⁶Upon you I have leaned from before my birth;
    you are he who took me from my mother’s womb.
    My praise is continually of you.
⁷I have been as a portent to many,
    but you are my strong refuge.
⁸My mouth is filled with your praise,
    and with your glory all the day.
⁹Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
    forsake me not when my strength is spent.
¹⁰For my enemies speak concerning me;
    those who watch for my life consult together
¹¹and say, “God has forsaken him;
    pursue and seize him,
    for there is none to deliver him.”
¹²O God, be not far from me;
    O my God, make haste to help me!
¹³May my accusers be put to shame and consumed;
    with scorn and disgrace may they be covered
    who seek my hurt.
¹⁴But I will hope continually
    and will praise you yet more and more.
¹⁵My mouth will tell of your righteous acts,
    of your deeds of salvation all the day,
    for their number is past my knowledge.
¹⁶With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come;
    I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone.
¹⁷O God, from my youth you have taught me,
    and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.
¹⁸So even to old age and gray hairs,
    O God, do not forsake me,
    until I proclaim your might to another generation,
    your power to all those to come.
¹⁹Your righteousness, O God,
    reaches the high heavens.
    You who have done great things,
    O God, who is like you?
²⁰You who have made me see many troubles and calamities
    will revive me again;
    from the depths of the earth
    you will bring me up again.
²¹You will increase my greatness
    and comfort me again.
²²I will also praise you with the harp
    for your faithfulness, O my God;
    I will sing praises to you with the lyre,
    O Holy One of Israel.
²³My lips will shout for joy,
    when I sing praises to you;
    my soul also, which you have redeemed.
²⁴And my tongue will talk of your righteous help all the day long,
    for they have been put to shame and disappointed
    who sought to do me hurt.

Psalm 74

¹ O God, why do you cast us off forever?
    Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?
²Remember your congregation, which you have purchased of old,
    which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage!
    Remember Mount Zion, where you have dwelt.
³Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins;
    the enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary!
⁴Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place;
    they set up their own signs for signs.
⁵They were like those who swing axes
    in a forest of trees.
⁶And all its carved wood
    they broke down with hatchets and hammers.
⁷They set your sanctuary on fire;
    they profaned the dwelling place of your name,
    bringing it down to the ground.
⁸They said to themselves, “We will utterly subdue them”;
    they burned all the meeting places of God in the land.
⁹We do not see our signs;
    there is no longer any prophet,
    and there is none among us who knows how long.
¹⁰How long, O God, is the foe to scoff?
    Is the enemy to revile your name forever?
¹¹Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?
    Take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them!
¹²Yet God my King is from of old,
    working salvation in the midst of the earth.
¹³You divided the sea by your might;
    you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.
¹⁴You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
    you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
¹⁵You split open springs and brooks;
    you dried up ever-flowing streams.
¹⁶Yours is the day, yours also the night;
    you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
¹⁷You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
    you have made summer and winter.
¹⁸Remember this, O Lord, how the enemy scoffs,
    and a foolish people reviles your name.
¹⁹Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beasts;
    do not forget the life of your poor forever.
²⁰Have regard for the covenant,
    for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.
²¹Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame;
    let the poor and needy praise your name.
²²Arise, O God, defend your cause;
    remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day!
²³Do not forget the clamor of your foes,
    the uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually!

Ecclesiastes 11:1-8

¹ Cast your bread upon the waters,
    for you will find it after many days.
²Give a portion to seven, or even to eight,
    for you know not what disaster may happen on earth.
³If the clouds are full of rain,
    they empty themselves on the earth,
and if a tree falls to the south or to the north,
    in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie.
⁴He who observes the wind will not sow,
    and he who regards the clouds will not reap.
⁵As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. ⁶In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand, for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good. ⁷Light is sweet, and it is pleasant for the eyes to see the sun. ⁸So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.

Galatians 5:16-24

¹⁶But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. ¹⁸But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. ¹⁹ Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, ²⁰ idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, ²¹ envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. ²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. ²⁴ And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Matthew 16:13-20

¹³Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” ¹⁴And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” ¹⁵He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”¹⁶Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” ¹⁷And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”²⁰Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.