Evening Prayer: December 6th, 2022

Isaiah 40

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 on it;
    surely the people are grass.
8   The grass withers, the flower fades,
    but the word of our God will stand forever.

9   Go on up to a high mountain,
    O Zion, herald of good news;
  lift up your voice with strength,
    O Jerusalem, herald of good news;
    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 tend 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 measured the Spirit of the LORD,
    or what man shows him his counsel?
14   Whom did he consult,
    and who made him understand?
  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 coastlands 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.


18   To whom then will you liken God,
    or what likeness compare with him?
19   An idol! A craftsman casts it,
    and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
    and casts for it silver chains.
20   He who is too impoverished for an offering
    chooses wood that will not rot;
  he seeks out a skillful craftsman
    to set up an idol that will not move.


21   Do you not know? Do you not hear?
    Has it not been told you from the beginning?
    Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
22   It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
    and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
  who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
    and spreads them like a tent to dwell in;
23   who brings princes to nothing,
    and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.


24   Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
    scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
  when he blows on them, and they wither,
    and the tempest carries them off like stubble.


25   To whom then will you compare me,
    that I should be like him? says the Holy One.
26   Lift up your eyes on high and see:
    who created these?
  He who brings out their host by number,
    calling them all by name;
  by the greatness of his might
    and because he is strong in power,
    not one is missing.


27   Why do you say, O Jacob,
    and speak, O Israel,
  “My way is hidden from the LORD,
    and my right is disregarded by my God”?
28   Have you not known? Have you not heard?
  The LORD is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
  He does not faint or grow weary;
    his understanding is unsearchable.
29   He gives power to the faint,
    and to him who has no might he increases strength.
30   Even youths shall faint and be weary,
    and young men shall fall exhausted;
31   but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
  they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint.

ESV

The Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

A brief silence is kept after the reading.
Please pause the service if you would like more time.

Luke 14

14 One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. 2 And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. 3 And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?” 4 But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. 5 And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” 6 And they could not reply to these things.

7 Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, 9 and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

12 He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.”

15 When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” 16 But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. 17 And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ 18 But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ 19 And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ 20 And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ 21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ 22 And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ 23 And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’”

25 Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

34 “Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? 35 It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

ESV

The Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

A brief silence is kept after the reading.