1st Sunday of Moses

Deuteronomy 11:1-12

Rewards for Obedience

11 “You shall therefore love the Lord your God, and keep his charge, his statutes, his ordinances, and his commandments always. ² And consider this day (since I am not speaking to your children who have not known or seen it), consider the discipline of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand and his outstretched arm, ³ his signs and his deeds which he did in Egypt to Pharaoh the king of Egypt and to all his land; ⁴ and what he did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued after you, and how the Lord has destroyed them to this day; ⁵ and what he did to you in the wilderness, until you came to this place; ⁶ and what he did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, son of Reuben; how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households, their tents, and every living thing that followed them, in the midst of all Israel; ⁷ for your eyes have seen all the great work of the Lord which he did.

8 “You shall therefore keep all the commandment which I command you this day, that you may be strong, and go in and take possession of the land which you are going over to possess, ⁹ and that you may live long in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give to them and to their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. ¹⁰ For the land which you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it with your feet, like a garden of vegetables; ¹¹ but the land which you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, ¹² a land which the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

 

Isaiah 40:1-17

God Comforts His People

40 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

² Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,

and cry to her

that her warfare is ended,

that her iniquity is pardoned,

that she has received from the Lord’s hand

double for all her sins.

³ A voice cries:

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,

make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

⁴ Every valley shall be lifted up,

and every mountain and hill be made low;

the uneven ground shall become level,

and the rough places a plain.

⁵ And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

and all flesh shall see it together,

for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

⁶ A voice says, “Cry!”

And I said, “What shall I cry!”

All flesh is grass,

and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.

⁷ The grass withers, the flower fades,

when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;

surely the people is grass.

⁸ The grass withers, the flower fades;

but the word of our God will stand for ever.

⁹ Get you up to a high mountain,

O Zion, herald of good tidings;

lift up your voice with strength,

O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,

lift it up, fear not;

say to the cities of Judah,

“Behold your God!”

¹⁰ Behold, the Lord God comes with might,

and his arm rules for him;

behold, his reward is with him,

and his recompense before him.

¹¹ He will feed his flock like a shepherd,

he will gather the lambs in his arms,

he will carry them in his bosom,

and gently lead those that are with young.

¹² Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand

and marked off the heavens with a span,

enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure

and weighed the mountains in scales

and the hills in a balance?

¹³ Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord,

or as his counselor has instructed him?

¹⁴ Whom did he consult for his enlightenment,

and who taught him the path of justice,

and taught him knowledge,

and showed him the way of understanding?

¹⁵ Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,

and are accounted as the dust on the scales;

behold, he takes up the isles like fine dust.

¹⁶ Lebanon would not suffice for fuel,

nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering.

¹⁷ All the nations are as nothing before him,

they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.

 

2Corinthians 1:23-2:16

23 But I call God to witness against me—it was to spare you that I refrained from coming to Corinth. ²⁴ Not that we lord it over your faith; we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith. 2 ¹ For I made up my mind not to make you another painful visit. ² For if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have pained? ³ And I wrote as I did, so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice, for I felt sure of all of you, that my joy would be the joy of you all. ⁴ For I wrote you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.

Forgiveness for the Offender

5 But if any one has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure—not to put it too severely—to you all. ⁶ For such a one this punishment by the majority is enough; ⁷ so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. ⁸ So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him. ⁹ For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything. ¹⁰ Any one whom you forgive, I also forgive. What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, ¹¹ to keep Satan from gaining the advantage over us; for we are not ignorant of his designs.

Paul’s Anxiety in Troas

12 When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, a door was opened for me in the Lord; ¹³ but my mind could not rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I took leave of them and went on to Macedonia.

14 But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. ¹⁵ For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, ¹⁶ to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

 

Matthew 20:1-16

The Laborers in the Vineyard

20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ² After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard. ³ And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place; ⁴ and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went. ⁵ Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. ⁶ And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing; and he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ ⁷ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ ⁸ And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ ⁹ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. ¹⁰ Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. ¹¹ And on receiving it they grumbled at the householder, ¹² saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ ¹³ But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? ¹⁴ Take what belongs to you, and go; I choose to give to this last as I give to you. ¹⁵ Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’ ¹⁶ So the last will be first, and the first last.”