Season after Pentecost

Amos 8:1-12

A famine of hearing God’s words

8:1This is what the Lord GOD showed me: a basket of summer fruit.

8:2He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the LORD said to me, “The end has come upon my people Israel; I will spare them no longer.

8:3The songs of the temple shall become wailings on that day,” says the Lord GOD; “the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place. Be silent!”

8:4Hear this, you who trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land,

8:5saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah smaller and the shekel heavier and practice deceit with false balances,

8:6buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”

8:7The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.

8:8Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who lives in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?

8:9On that day, says the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.

8:10I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on all loins and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day.

8:11The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.

8:12They shall wander from sea to sea and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.

Psalm 52

I am like a green olive tree

52:1Why do you boast, O mighty one, of mischief done against the godly? All day long

52:2you are plotting destruction. Your tongue is like a sharp razor, you worker of treachery.

52:3You love evil more than good and lying more than speaking the truth. Selah

52:4You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue.

52:5But God will break you down forever; he will snatch and tear you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah

52:6The righteous will see and fear and will laugh at the evildoer, saying,

52:7″See the one who would not take refuge in God but trusted in abundant riches and sought refuge in wealth!”

52:8But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever.

52:9I will thank you forever because of what you have done. In the presence of the faithful I will proclaim your name, for it is good.

Genesis 18:1-10a

The hospitality of Abraham and Sarah

18:1The LORD appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the entrance of his tent in the heat of the day.

18:2He looked up and saw three men standing near him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them and bowed down to the ground.

18:3He said, “My lord, if I find favor with you, do not pass by your servant.

18:4Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree.

18:5Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on–since you have come to your servant.” So they said, “Do as you have said.”

18:6And Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah and said, “Make ready quickly three measures of choice flour, knead it, and make cakes.”

18:7Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to the servant, who hastened to prepare it.

18:8Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared and set it before them, and he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

18:9They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.”

18:10aThen one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.”

Psalm 15

Abiding on God’s holy hill

15:1O LORD, who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill?

15:2Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right and speak the truth from their heart;

15:3who do not slander with their tongue and do no evil to their friends nor heap shame upon their neighbors;

15:4in whose eyes the wicked are despised but who honor those who fear the LORD; who stand by their oath even to their hurt;

15:5who do not lend money at interest and do not take a bribe against the innocent. Those who do these things shall never be moved.

Colossians 1:15-28

A hymn to Christ

1:15He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation,

1:16for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers–all things have been created through him and for him.

1:17He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

1:18He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

1:19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

1:20and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

1:21And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds,

1:22he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him,

1:23provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a minister of this gospel.

1:24I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.

1:25I became its minister according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known,

1:26the mystery that has been hidden throughout the ages and generations but has now been revealed to his saints.

1:27To them God chose to make known how great among the gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

1:28It is he whom we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone in all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.

Luke 10:38-42

Choosing the better part

10:38Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.

10:39She had a sister named Mary, who sat at Jesus’s feet and listened to what he was saying.

10:40But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her, then, to help me.”

10:41But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things,

10:42but few things are needed–indeed only one. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”