Daily Readings - 28/06/2026

^4:8 One day as Elisha was on his way to Shunem, a woman of rank who lived there pressed him to stay and eat there. After this he always broke his journey for a meal when he passed that way.

^4:9 She said to her husband, ‘Look, I am sure the man who is constantly passing our way must be a holy man of God.

^4:10 Let us build him a small room on the roof, and put him a bed in it, and a table and chair and lamp; whenever he comes to us he can rest there.’

^4:11 One day when he came, he retired to the upper room and lay down.

^4:14 ‘What can be done for her then?’ he asked. Gehazi answered, ‘Well, she has no son and her husband is old’.

^4:15 Elisha said, ‘Call her’. The servant called her and she stood at the door.

^4:16 ‘This time next year,’ he said ‘you will hold a son in your arms.’ But she said, ‘No, my lord, do not deceive your servant’.

^88:1 Yahweh my God, I call for help all day, I weep to you all night;

^88:2 may my prayer reach you hear my cries for help;

^88:3 for my soul is all troubled, my life is on the brink of Sheol;

^88:4 I am numbered among those who go down to the Pit, a man bereft of strength:

^88:5 a man alone, down among the dead, among the slaughtered in their graves, among those you have forgotten, those deprived of your protecting hand.

^88:6 You have plunged me to the bottom of the Pit, to its darkest, deepest place,

^88:7 weighted down by your anger, drowned beneath your waves. (pause)

^88:8 You have turned my friends against me and made me repulsive to them; in prison and unable to escape, my eyes are worn out with suffering.

^88:9 Yahweh, I invoke you all day, I stretch out my hands to you:

^88:10 are your marvels meant for the dead, can ghosts rise up to praise you?

^88:11 Who talks of your love in the grave, of your faithfulness in the place of perdition?

^88:12 Do they hear about your marvels in the dark, about your righteousness in the land of oblivion? (pause)

^88:13 But I am here, calling for your help, praying to you every morning:

^88:14 why do you reject me? Why do you hide your face from me?

^88:15 Wretched, slowly dying since my youth, I bore your terrors – now I am exhausted;

^88:16 your anger overwhelmed me, you destroyed me with your terrors

^88:17 which, like a flood, were round me, all day long, all together closing in on me.

^88:18 You have turned my friends and neighbours against me, now darkness is my one companion left.

^6:3 You have been taught that when we were baptised in Christ Jesus we were baptised in his death;

^6:4 in other words, when we were baptised we went into the tomb with him and joined him in death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father’s glory, we too might live a new life.

^6:8 But we believe that having died with Christ we shall return to life with him:

^6:9 Christ, as we know, having been raised from the dead will never die again. Death has no power over him any more.

^6:10 When he died, he died, once for all, to sin, so his life now is life with God;

^6:11 and in that way, you too must consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus.

^10:37 ‘Anyone who prefers father or mother to me is not worthy of me. Anyone who prefers son or daughter to me is not worthy of me.

^10:38 Anyone who does not take his cross and follow in my footsteps is not worthy of me.

^10:39 Anyone who finds his life will lose it; anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.

^10:40 Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me; and those who welcome me welcome the one who sent me.

^10:41 Anyone who welcomes a prophet will have a prophet’s reward; and anyone who welcomes a holy man will have a holy man’s reward.

^10:42 ‘If anyone gives so much as a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is a disciple, then I tell you solemnly, he will most certainly not lose his reward.’

^12:1 It was about this time that King Herod started persecuting certain members of the Church.

^12:2 He beheaded James the brother of John,

^12:3 and when he saw that this pleased the Jews he decided to arrest Peter as well.

^12:4 This was during the days of Unleavened Bread, and he put Peter in prison, assigning four squads of four soldiers each to guard him in turns. Herod meant to try Peter in public after the end of Passover week.

^12:5 All the time Peter was under guard the Church prayed to God for him unremittingly.

^12:6 On the night before Herod was to try him, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, fastened with double chains, while guards kept watch at the main entrance to the prison.

^12:7 Then suddenly the angel of the Lord stood there, and the cell was filled with light. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him. ‘Get up!’ he said ‘Hurry!’ – and the chains fell from his hands.

^12:8 The angel then said, ‘Put on your belt and sandals’. After he had done this, the angel next said, ‘Wrap your cloak round you and follow me’.

^12:9 Peter followed him, but had no idea that what the angel did was all happening in reality; he thought he was seeing a vision.

^12:10 They passed through two guard posts one after the other, and reached the iron gate leading to the city. This opened of its own accord; they went through it and had walked the whole length of one street when suddenly the angel left him.

^12:11 It was only then that Peter came to himself. ‘Now I know it is all true’ he said. The Lord really did send his angel and has saved me from Herod and from all that the Jewish people were so certain would happen to me.’

^33:1 Shout for joy to Yahweh, all virtuous men, praise comes well from upright hearts;

^33:2 give thanks to Yahweh on the lyre, play to him on the ten-string harp;

^33:3 sing a new song in his honour, play with all your skill as you acclaim[*a] him!

^33:4 The word of Yahweh is integrity itself, all he does is done faithfully;

^33:5 he loves virtue and justice, Yahweh’s love fills the earth.

^33:6 By the word of Yahweh the heavens were made, their whole array by the breath of his mouth;

^33:7 he collects the ocean waters as though in a wineskin, he stores the deeps in cellars.

^33:8 Let the whole world fear Yahweh, let all who live on earth revere him!

^33:9 He spoke, and it was created; he commanded, and there it stood.

^33:10 Yahweh thwarts the plans of nations, frustrates the intentions of peoples;

^33:11 but Yahweh’s plans hold good for ever, the intentions of his heart from age to age.

^33:12 Happy the nation whose God is Yahweh, the people he has chosen for his heritage.

^33:13 Yahweh looks down from heaven, he sees the whole human race;

^33:14 from where he sits he watches all who live on the earth,

^33:15 he who moulds every heart and takes note of all men do.

^33:16 A large army will not keep a king safe, nor does the hero escape by his great strength;

^33:17 it is delusion to rely on the horse for safety, for all its power, it cannot save.

^33:18 But see how the eye of Yahweh is on those who fear him, on those who rely on his love,

^33:19 to rescue their souls from death and keep them alive in famine.

^33:20 Our soul awaits Yahweh, he is our help and shield;

^33:21 our hearts rejoice in him, we trust in his holy name.

^33:22 Yahweh, let your love rest on us as our hope has rested in you.

^16:13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’

^16:14 And they said, ‘Some say he is John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets’.

^16:15 ‘But you,’ he said ‘who do you say I am?’

^16:16 Then Simon Peter spoke up, ‘You are the Christ,’ he said ‘the Son of the living God’.

^16:17 Jesus replied, ‘Simon son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.

^16:18 So I now say to you: You are Peter[*b] and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld[*c] can never hold out against it.

^16:19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.'[*d]