2019-09 Lectionary Slides
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2019-09-01
2019-09-01
4 Listen to the Lord’s message, you descendants of Jacob, you tribes of Israel.
5 The Lord says: “What accusation did your ancestors bring against me? What made them turn away from me? They worshipped worthless idols and became worthless themselves.
6 They did not care about me, even though I rescued them from Egypt and led them through the wilderness: a land of deserts and sand dunes, a dry and dangerous land where no one lives and no one will even travel.
7 I brought them into a fertile land, to enjoy its harvests and its other good things. But instead they ruined my land; they defiled the country I had given them.
8 The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ My own priests did not know me. The rulers rebelled against me; the prophets spoke in the name of Baal and worshipped useless idols.
9 “And so I, the Lord, will state my case against my people again. I will bring charges against their descendants.
10 Go west to the island of Cyprus, and send someone eastwards to the land of Kedar. You will see that nothing like this has ever happened before.
11 No other nation has ever changed its gods, even though they were not real. But my people have exchanged me, the God who has brought them honour, for gods that can do nothing for them.
12 And so I command the sky to shake with horror, to be amazed and astonished,
13 for my people have committed two sins: they have turned away from me, the spring of fresh water, and they have dug cisterns, cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all.
1 Shout for joy to God our defender; sing praise to the God of Jacob!
,
10 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt. Open your mouth, and I will feed you.
11 “But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not obey me.
12 So I let them go their stubborn ways and do whatever they wanted.
13 How I wish my people would listen to me; how I wish they would obey me!
14 I would quickly defeat their enemies and conquer all their foes.
15 Those who hate me would bow in fear before me; their punishment would last for ever.
16 But I would feed you with the finest wheat and satisfy you with wild honey.”
6 When you stand before the king, don’t try to impress him and pretend to be important.
7 It is better to be asked to take a higher position than to be told to give your place to someone more important.
1 Praise the Lord! Happy is the person who honours the Lord, who takes pleasure in obeying his commands.
2 The good man’s children will be powerful in the land; his descendants will be blessed.
3 His family will be wealthy and rich, and he will be prosperous for ever.
4 Light shines in the darkness for good people, for those who are merciful, kind, and just.
5 Happy is the person who is generous with his loans, who runs his business honestly.
6 A good person will never fail; he will always be remembered.
7 He is not afraid of receiving bad news; his faith is strong, and he trusts in the Lord.
8 He is not worried or afraid; he is certain to see his enemies defeated.
9 He gives generously to the needy, and his kindness never fails; he will be powerful and respected.
10 The wicked see this and are angry; they glare in hate and disappear; their hopes are gone for ever.
1 Keep on loving one another as Christian brothers and sisters.
2 Remember to welcome strangers in your homes. There were some who did that and welcomed angels without knowing it.
3 Remember those who are in prison, as though you were in prison with them. Remember those who are suffering, as though you were suffering as they are.
4 Marriage is to be honoured by all, and husbands and wives must be faithful to each other. God will judge those who are immoral and those who commit adultery.
5 Keep your lives free from the love of money, and be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never leave you; I will never abandon you.”
6 Let us be bold, then, and say: “The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?”
7 Remember your former leaders, who spoke God’s message to you. Think back on how they lived and died, and imitate their faith.
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and for ever.
15 Let us, then, always offer praise to God as our sacrifice through Jesus, which is the offering presented by lips that confess him as Lord.
16 Do not forget to do good and to help one another, because these are the sacrifices that please God.
1 One Sabbath Jesus went to eat a meal at the home of one of the leading Pharisees; and people were watching Jesus closely.
7 Jesus noticed how some of the guests were choosing the best places, so he told this parable to all of them:
8 “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not sit down in the best place. It could happen that someone more important than you has been invited,
9 and your host, who invited both of you, would have to come and say to you, ‘Let him have this place.’ Then you would be embarrassed and have to sit in the lowest place.
10 Instead, when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that your host will come to you and say, ‘Come on up, my friend, to a better place.’ This will bring you honour in the presence of all the other guests.
11 For all those who make themselves great will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be made great.”
12 Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbours—for they will invite you back, and in this way you will be paid for what you did.
13 When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind;
14 and you will be blessed, because they are not able to pay you back. God will repay you on the day the good people rise from death.”
2019-09-08
2019-09-08
1 The Lord said to me,
2 “Go down to the potter’s house, where I will give you my message.”
3 So I went there and saw the potter working at his wheel.
4 Whenever a piece of pottery turned out imperfect, he would take the clay and make it into something else.
5 Then the Lord said to me,
6 “Haven’t I the right to do with you people of Israel what the potter did with the clay? You are in my hands just like clay in the potter’s hands.
7 If at any time I say that I am going to uproot, break down, or destroy any nation or kingdom,
8 but then that nation turns from its evil, I will not do what I said I would.
9 On the other hand, if I say that I am going to plant or build up any nation or kingdom,
10 but then that nation disobeys me and does evil, I will not do what I said I would.
11 Now then, tell the people of Judah and of Jerusalem that I am making plans against them and getting ready to punish them. Tell them to stop living sinful lives—to change their ways and the things they are doing.
1 Lord, you have examined me and you know me.
2 You know everything I do; from far away you understand all my thoughts.
3 You see me, whether I am working or resting; you know all my actions.
4 Even before I speak, you already know what I will say.
5 You are all round me on every side; you protect me with your power.
6 Your knowledge of me is too deep; it is beyond my understanding.
13 You created every part of me; you put me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because you are to be feared; all you do is strange and wonderful. I know it with all my heart.
15 When my bones were being formed, carefully put together in my mother’s womb, when I was growing there in secret, you knew that I was there-
16 you saw me before I was born. The days allotted to me had all been recorded in your book, before any of them ever began.
17 O God, how difficult I find your thoughts; how many of them there are!
18 If I counted them, they would be more than the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.
15 “Today I am giving you a choice between good and evil, between life and death.
16 If you obey the commands of the Lord your God, which I give you today, if you love him, obey him, and keep all his laws, then you will prosper and become a nation of many people. The Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are about to occupy.
17 But if you disobey and refuse to listen, and are led away to worship other gods,
18 you will be destroyed—I warn you here and now. You will not live long in that land across the Jordan that you are about to occupy.
19 I am now giving you the choice between life and death, between God’s blessing and God’s curse, and I call heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Choose life.
20 Love the Lord your God, obey him and be faithful to him, and then you and your descendants will live long in the land that he promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
1 Happy are those who reject the advice of evil people, who do not follow the example of sinners or join those who have no use for God.
2 Instead, they find joy in obeying the Law of the Lord, and they study it day and night.
3 They are like trees that grow beside a stream, that bear fruit at the right time, and whose leaves do not dry up. They succeed in everything they do.
4 But evil people are not like this at all; they are like straw that the wind blows away.
5 Sinners will be condemned by God and kept apart from God’s own people.
6 The righteous are guided and protected by the Lord, but the evil are on the way to their doom.
1 From Paul, a prisoner for the sake of Christ Jesus, and from our brother Timothy— To our friend and fellow-worker Philemon,
2 and the church that meets in your house, and our sister Apphia, and our fellow-soldier Archippus:
3 May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.
4 Brother Philemon, every time I pray, I mention you and give thanks to my God.
5 For I hear of your love for all God’s people and the faith you have in the Lord Jesus.
6 My prayer is that our fellowship with you as believers will bring about a deeper understanding of every blessing which we have in our life in union with Christ.
7 Your love, dear brother, has brought me great joy and much encouragement! You have cheered the hearts of all God’s people.
8 For this reason I could be bold enough, as your brother in Christ, to order you to do what should be done.
9 But because I love you, I make a request instead. I do this even though I am Paul, the ambassador of Christ Jesus, and at present also a prisoner for his sake.
10 So I make a request to you on behalf of Onesimus, who is my own son in Christ; for while in prison I have become his spiritual father.
11 At one time he was of no use to you, but now he is useful both to you and to me.
12 I am sending him back to you now, and with him goes my heart.
13 I would like to keep him here with me, while I am in prison for the gospel’s sake, so that he could help me in your place.
14 However, I do not want to force you to help me; rather, I would like you to do it of your own free will. So I will not do anything unless you agree.
15 It may be that Onesimus was away from you for a short time so that you might have him back for all time.
16 And now he is not just a slave, but much more than a slave: he is a dear brother in Christ. How much he means to me! And how much more he will mean to you, both as a slave and as a brother in the Lord!
17 So, if you think of me as your partner, welcome him back just as you would welcome me.
18 If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to my account.
19 Here, I will write this with my own hand: I, Paul, will pay you back. (I should not have to remind you, of course, that you owe your very self to me.)
20 So, my brother, please do me this favour for the Lord’s sake; as a brother in Christ, cheer me up!
21 I am sure, as I write this, that you will do what I ask—in fact I know that you will do even more.
25 Once when large crowds of people were going along with Jesus, he turned and said to them,
26 “Those who come to me cannot be my disciples unless they love me more than they love father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and themselves as well.
27 Those who do not carry their own cross and come after me cannot be my disciples.
28 “If one of you is planning to build a tower, you sit down first and work out what it will cost, to see if you have enough money to finish the job.
29 If you don’t, you will not be able to finish the tower after laying the foundation; and all who see what happened will laugh at you.
30 ‘This man began to build but can’t finish the job!’ they will say.
31 “If a king goes out with ten thousand men to fight another king who comes against him with twenty thousand men, he will sit down first and decide if he is strong enough to face that other king.
32 If he isn’t, he will send messengers to meet the other king, to ask for terms of peace while he is still a long way off.
33 In the same way,” concluded Jesus, “none of you can be my disciple unless you give up everything you have.
2019-09-15
2019-09-15
11 The time is coming when the people of Jerusalem will be told that a scorching wind is blowing in from the desert towards them. It will not be a gentle wind that only blows away the chaff-
12 the wind that comes at the Lord’s command will be much stronger than that! It is the Lord himself who is pronouncing judgement on his people.
22 The Lord says, “My people are stupid; they don’t know me. They are like foolish children; they have no understanding. They are experts at doing what is evil, but failures at doing what is good.”
23 I looked at the earth—it was a barren waste; at the sky—there was no light.
24 I looked at the mountains—they were shaking, and the hills were rocking to and fro.
25 I saw that there were no people; even the birds had flown away.
26 The fertile land had become a desert; its cities were in ruins because of the Lord’s fierce anger.
27 (The Lord has said that the whole earth will become a wilderness, but that he will not completely destroy it.)
28 The earth will mourn; the sky will grow dark. The Lord has spoken and will not change his mind. He has made his decision and will not turn back.
1 Fools say to themselves, “There is no God.” They are all corrupt, and they have done terrible things; there is no one who does what is right.
2 The Lord looks down from heaven at human beings to see if there are any who are wise, any who worship him.
3 But they have all gone wrong; they are all equally bad. Not one of them does what is right, not a single one.
4 “Don’t they know?” asks the Lord. “Are all these evildoers ignorant? They live by robbing my people, and they never pray to me.”
5 But then they will be terrified, for God is with those who obey him.
6 Evildoers frustrate the plans of the humble, but the Lord is their protection.
7 How I pray that victory will come to Israel from Zion. How happy the people of Israel will be when the Lord makes them prosperous again!
7 The Lord said to Moses, “Go back down at once, because your people, whom you led out of Egypt, have sinned and rejected me.
8 They have already left the way that I commanded them to follow; they have made a bull calf out of melted gold and have worshipped it and offered sacrifices to it. They are saying that this is their god, who led them out of Egypt.
9 I know how stubborn these people are.
10 Now, don’t try to stop me. I am angry with them, and I am going to destroy them. Then I will make you and your descendants into a great nation.”
11 But Moses pleaded with the Lord his God and said, “Lord, why should you be so angry with your people, whom you rescued from Egypt with great might and power?
12 Why should the Egyptians be able to say that you led your people out of Egypt, planning to kill them in the mountains and destroy them completely? Stop being angry; change your mind and do not bring this disaster on your people.
13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Remember the solemn promise you made to them to give them as many descendants as there are stars in the sky and to give their descendants all that land you promised would be their possession for ever.”
14 So the Lord changed his mind and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.
1 Be merciful to me, O God, because of your constant love. Because of your great mercy wipe away my sins!
2 Wash away all my evil and make me clean from my sin!
3 I recognize my faults; I am always conscious of my sins.
4 I have sinned against you—only against you— and done what you consider evil. So you are right in judging me; you are justified in condemning me.
5 I have been evil from the day I was born; from the time I was conceived, I have been sinful.
6 Sincerity and truth are what you require; fill my mind with your wisdom.
7 Remove my sin, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear the sounds of joy and gladness; and though you have crushed me and broken me, I will be happy once again.
9 Close your eyes to my sins and wipe out all my evil.
10 Create a pure heart in me, O God, and put a new and loyal spirit in me.
12 I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength for my work. I thank him for considering me worthy and appointing me to serve him,
13 even though in the past I spoke evil of him and persecuted and insulted him. But God was merciful to me because I did not yet have faith and so did not know what I was doing.
14 And our Lord poured out his abundant grace on me and gave me the faith and love which are ours in union with Christ Jesus.
15 This is a true saying, to be completely accepted and believed: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. I am the worst of them,
16 but God was merciful to me in order that Christ Jesus might show his full patience in dealing with me, the worst of sinners, as an example for all those who would later believe in him and receive eternal life.
17 To the eternal King, immortal and invisible, the only God—to him be honour and glory for ever and ever! Amen.
1 One day when many tax collectors and other outcasts came to listen to Jesus,
2 the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law started grumbling, “This man welcomes outcasts and even eats with them!”
3 So Jesus told them this parable:
4 “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them—what do you do? You leave the other ninety-nine sheep in the pasture and go looking for the one that got lost until you find it.
5 When you find it, you are so happy that you put it on your shoulders
6 and carry it back home. Then you call your friends and neighbours together and say to them, ‘I am so happy I found my lost sheep. Let us celebrate!’
7 In the same way, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine respectable people who do not need to repent.
8 “Or suppose a woman who has ten silver coins loses one of them—what does she do? She lights a lamp, sweeps her house, and looks carefully everywhere until she finds it.
9 When she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbours together, and says to them, ‘I am so happy I found the coin I lost. Let us celebrate!’
10 In the same way, I tell you, the angels of God rejoice over one sinner who repents.”
2019-09-22
2019-09-22
18 My sorrow cannot be healed; I am sick at heart.
19 Listen! Throughout the land I hear my people crying out, “Is the Lord no longer in Zion? Is Zion’s king no longer there?” The Lord, their king, replies, “Why have you made me angry by worshipping your idols and by bowing down to your useless foreign gods?”
20 The people cry out, “The summer is gone, the harvest is over, but we have not been saved.”
21 My heart has been crushed because my people are crushed; I mourn; I am completely dismayed.
22 Is there no medicine in Gilead? Are there no doctors there? Why, then, have my people not been healed?
1 I wish my head were a well of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I could cry day and night for my people who have been killed.
1 O God, the heathen have invaded your land. They have desecrated your holy Temple and left Jerusalem in ruins.
2 They left the bodies of your people for the vultures, the bodies of your servants for wild animals to eat.
3 They shed your people’s blood like water; blood flowed like water all through Jerusalem, and no one was left to bury the dead.
4 The surrounding nations insult us; they laugh at us and mock us.
5 Lord, will you be angry with us for ever? Will your anger continue to burn like fire?
6 Turn your anger on the nations that do not worship you, on the people who do not pray to you.
7 For they have killed your people; they have ruined your country.
8 Do not punish us for the sins of our ancestors. Have mercy on us now; we have lost all hope.
9 Help us, O God, and save us; rescue us and forgive our sins for the sake of your own honour.
4 Listen to this, you that trample on the needy and try to destroy the poor of the country.
5 You say to yourselves, “We can hardly wait for the holy days to be over so that we can sell our corn. When will the Sabbath end, so that we can start selling again? Then we can overcharge, use false measures, and tamper with the scales to cheat our customers.
6 We can sell worthless wheat at a high price. We’ll find a poor person who can’t pay his debts, not even the price of a pair of sandals, and we’ll buy him as a slave.”
7 The Lord, the God of Israel, has sworn, “I will never forget their evil deeds.
1 Praise the Lord! You servants of the Lord, praise his name!
2 May his name be praised, now and for ever.
3 From the east to the west praise the name of the Lord!
4 The Lord rules over all nations; his glory is above the heavens.
5 There is no one like the Lord our God. He lives in the heights above,
6 but he bends down to see the heavens and the earth.
7 He raises the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from their misery
8 and makes them companions of princes, the princes of his people.
9 He honours the childless wife in her home; he makes her happy by giving her children. Praise the Lord!
1 First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, requests, and thanksgivings be offered to God for all people;
2 for kings and all others who are in authority, that we may live a quiet and peaceful life with all reverence towards God and with proper conduct.
3 This is good and it pleases God our Saviour,
4 who wants everyone to be saved and to come to know the truth.
5 For there is one God, and there is one who brings God and human beings together, the man Christ Jesus,
6 who gave himself to redeem everyone. That was the proof at the right time that God wants everyone to be saved,
7 and that is why I was sent as an apostle and teacher of the Gentiles, to proclaim the message of faith and truth. I am not lying; I am telling the truth!
1 Jesus said to his disciples, “There was once a rich man who had a servant who managed his property. The rich man was told that the manager was wasting his master’s money,
2 so he called him in and said, ‘What is this I hear about you? Hand in a complete account of your handling of my property, because you cannot be my manager any longer.’
3 The servant said to himself, ‘My master is going to dismiss me from my job. What shall I do? I am not strong enough to dig ditches, and I am ashamed to beg.
4 Now I know what I will do! Then when my job is gone, I shall have friends who will welcome me in their homes.’
5 “So he called in all the people who were in debt to his master. He asked the first one, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
6 ‘One hundred barrels of olive oil,’ he answered. ‘Here is your account,’ the manager told him; ‘sit down and write fifty.’
7 Then he asked another one, ‘And you—how much do you owe?’ ‘A thousand sacks of wheat,’ he answered. ‘Here is your account,’ the manager told him; ‘write eight hundred.’
8 “As a result the master of this dishonest manager praised him for doing such a shrewd thing; because the people of this world are much more shrewd in handling their affairs than the people who belong to the light.”
9 And Jesus went on to say, “And so I tell you: make friends for yourselves with worldly wealth, so that when it gives out, you will be welcomed in the eternal home.
10 Whoever is faithful in small matters will be faithful in large ones; whoever is dishonest in small matters will be dishonest in large ones.
11 If, then, you have not been faithful in handling worldly wealth, how can you be trusted with true wealth?
12 And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to someone else, who will give you what belongs to you?
13 “No servant can be the slave of two masters; such a servant will hate one and love the other or will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
2019-09-29
2019-09-29
1 The Lord spoke to me in the tenth year that Zedekiah was king of Judah, which was also the eighteenth year of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia.
2 At that time the army of the king of Babylonia was attacking Jerusalem, and I was locked up in the courtyard of the royal palace.
3 King Zedekiah had imprisoned me there and had accused me of announcing that the Lord had said, “I am going to let the king of Babylonia capture this city,
6 The Lord told me
7 that Hanamel, my uncle Shallum’s son, would come to me with the request to buy his field at Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin, because I was his nearest relative and had the right to buy it for myself.
8 Then, just as the Lord had said, Hanamel came to me there in the courtyard and asked me to buy the field. So I knew that the Lord had really spoken to me.
9 I bought the field from Hanamel and weighed out the money to him; the price came to seventeen pieces of silver.
10 I signed and sealed the deed, had it witnessed, and weighed out the money on scales.
11 Then I took both copies of the deed of purchase—the sealed copy containing the contract and its conditions, and the open copy-
12 and gave them to Baruch, the son of Neriah and grandson of Mahseiah. I gave them to him in the presence of Hanamel and of the witnesses who had signed the deed of purchase and of the people who were sitting in the courtyard.
13 Before them all I said to Baruch,
14 “The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, has ordered you to take these deeds, both the sealed deed of purchase and the open copy, and to place them in a clay jar, so that they may be preserved for years to come.
15 The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, has said that houses, fields, and vineyards will again be bought in this land.”
1 Whoever goes to the Lord for safety, whoever remains under the protection of the Almighty,
2 can say to him, “You are my defender and protector. You are my God; in you I trust.”
3 He will keep you safe from all hidden dangers and from all deadly diseases.
4 He will cover you with his wings; you will be safe in his care; his faithfulness will protect and defend you.
5 You need not fear any dangers at night or sudden attacks during the day
6 or the plagues that strike in the dark or the evils that kill in daylight.
14 God says, “I will save those who love me and will protect those who acknowledge me as Lord.
15 When they call to me, I will answer them; when they are in trouble, I will be with them. I will rescue them and honour them.
16 I will reward them with long life; I will save them.”
1 How terrible it will be for you that have such an easy life in Zion and for you that feel safe in Samaria—you great leaders of this great nation Israel, you to whom the people go for help!
4 How terrible it will be for you that stretch out on your luxurious couches, feasting on veal and lamb!
5 You like to compose songs, as David did, and play them on harps.
6 You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest perfumes, but you do not mourn over the ruin of Israel.
7 So you will be the first to go into exile. Your feasts and banquets will come to an end.
1 Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, my soul!
2 I will praise him as long as I live; I will sing to my God all my life.
3 Don’t put your trust in human leaders; no human being can save you.
4 When they die, they return to the dust; on that day all their plans come to an end.
5 Happy are those who have the God of Jacob to help them and who depend on the Lord their God,
6 the Creator of heaven, earth, and sea, and all that is in them. He always keeps his promises;
7 he judges in favour of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free
8 and gives sight to the blind. He lifts those who have fallen; he loves his righteous people.
9 He protects the strangers who live in our land; he helps widows and orphans, but takes the wicked to their ruin.
10 The Lord is king for ever. Your God, O Zion, will reign for all time. Praise the Lord!
6 False Teaching and True Riches You must teach and preach these things.
7 What did we bring into the world? Nothing! What can we take out of the world? Nothing!
8 So then, if we have food and clothes, that should be enough for us.
9 But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and are caught in the trap of many foolish and harmful desires, which pull them down to ruin and destruction.
10 For the love of money is a source of all kinds of evil. Some have been so eager to have it that they have wandered away from the faith and have broken their hearts with many sorrows.
11 But you, man of God, avoid all these things. Strive for righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness.
12 Run your best in the race of faith, and win eternal life for yourself; for it was to this life that God called you when you firmly professed your faith before many witnesses.
13 Before God, who gives life to all things, and before Christ Jesus, who firmly professed his faith before Pontius Pilate, I command you
14 to obey your orders and keep them faithfully until the Day when our Lord Jesus Christ will appear.
15 His appearing will be brought about at the right time by God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
16 He alone is immortal; he lives in the light that no one can approach. No one has ever seen him; no one can ever see him. To him be honour and eternal dominion! Amen.
17 Command those who are rich in the things of this life not to be proud, but to place their hope, not in such an uncertain thing as riches, but in God, who generously gives us everything for our enjoyment.
18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share with others.
19 In this way they will store up for themselves a treasure which will be a solid foundation for the future. And then they will be able to win the life which is true life.
19 “There was once a rich man who dressed in the most expensive clothes and lived in great luxury every day.
20 There was also a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who used to be brought to the rich man’s door,
21 hoping to eat the bits of food that fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs would come and lick his sores.
22 “The poor man died and was carried by the angels to sit beside Abraham at the feast in heaven. The rich man died and was buried,
23 and in Hades, where he was in great pain, he looked up and saw Abraham, far away, with Lazarus at his side.
24 So he called out, ‘Father Abraham! Take pity on me, and send Lazarus to dip his finger in some water and cool my tongue, because I am in great pain in this fire!’
25 “But Abraham said, ‘Remember, my son, that in your lifetime you were given all the good things, while Lazarus got all the bad things. But now he is enjoying himself here, while you are in pain.
26 Besides all that, there is a deep pit lying between us, so that those who want to cross over from here to you cannot do so, nor can anyone cross over to us from where you are.’
27 The rich man said, ‘Then I beg you, father Abraham, send Lazarus to my father’s house,
28 where I have five brothers. Let him go and warn them so that they, at least, will not come to this place of pain.’
29 “Abraham said, ‘Your brothers have Moses and the prophets to warn them; your brothers should listen to what they say.’
30 The rich man answered, ‘That is not enough, father Abraham! But if someone were to rise from death and go to them, then they would turn from their sins.’
31 But Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone were to rise from death.’ ”