Daily Readings - 04/07/2026

^85:1 Yahweh, you favour your own country, you bring back the captives of Jacob,

^85:2 you take your people’s guilt away, you blot out all their sins, (pause)

^85:3 you retract all your anger, you abjure your fiery rage.

^85:4 Bring us back, God our saviour, master your resentment against us.

^85:5 Do you mean to be angry with us for ever, to prolong your wrath age after age?

^85:6 Will you not give us life again, for your people to rejoice in you?

^85:7 Yahweh, show us your love, grant us your saving help.

^85:8 I am listening. What is Yahweh saying? What God is saying means peace for his people, for his friends, if only they renounce their folly;

^85:9 for those who fear him, his saving help is near, and the glory will then live in our country.

^85:10 Love and Loyalty now meet, Righteousness and Peace now embrace;

^85:11 Loyalty reaches up from earth and Righteousness leans down from heaven.

^85:12 Yahweh himself bestows happiness as our soil gives its harvest,

^85:13 Righteousness always preceding him and Peace following his footsteps.

^9:14 Then John’s[*e] disciples came to him and said, ‘Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?’

^9:15 Jesus replied, ‘Surely the bridegroom’s attendants would never think of mourning as long as the bridegroom is still with them? But the time will come for the bridegroom to be taken away from them, and then they will fast.

^9:16 No one puts a piece of unshrunken cloth on to an old cloak, because the patch pulls away from the cloak and the tear gets worse.

^9:17 Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; if they do, the skins burst, the wine runs out, and the skins are lost. No; they put new wine into fresh skins and both are preserved.'[*f]

^145:1 I sing your praises, God my King, I bless your name for ever and ever,

^145:2 blessing you day after day, and praising your name for ever and ever.

^145:3 Can anyone measure the magnificence of Yahweh the great, and his inexpressible grandeur?

^145:4 Celebrating your acts of power, one age shall praise your doings to another.

^145:5 Oh, the splendour of your glory, your renown! I tell myself the story of your marvellous deeds.

^145:6 Men will proclaim your fearful power and I shall assert your greatness;

^145:7 they will celebrate your generous kindness and joyfully acclaim your righteousness.

^145:8 He, Yahweh, is merciful, tenderhearted, slow to anger, very loving,

^145:9 and universally kind; Yahweh’s tenderness embraces all his creatures.

^145:10 Yahweh, all your creatures thank you, and your faithful bless you.

^145:11 Kingly and glorious they proclaim you, they affirm your might.

^145:12 Let mankind learn your acts of power, and the majestic glory of your sovereignty!

^145:13 Your sovereignty is an eternal sovereignty, your empire lasts from age to age.

^145:14 Only stumble, and Yahweh at once supports you, if others bow you down, he will raise you up.

^145:15 Patiently all creatures look to you to feed them throughout the year;

^145:16 quick to satisfy every need, you feed them all with a generous hand.

^145:17 Righteous in all that he does, Yahweh acts only out of love,

^145:18 standing close to all who invoke him, close to all who invoke Yahweh faithfully.

^145:19 Those who fear him need only to ask to be answered; he hears their cries for help and saves them.

^145:20 Under his protection the pious are safe, but Yahweh is destruction to the wicked.

^145:21 Yahweh’s praise be ever in my mouth, and let every creature bless his holy name for ever and ever!

^8:9 Your interests, however, are not in the unspiritual, but in the spiritual, since the Spirit of God has made his home in you. In fact, unless you possessed the Spirit of Christ you would not belong to him.

^8:11 and if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will give life to your own mortal bodies through his Spirit living in you.

^8:12 So then, my brothers, there is no necessity for us to obey our unspiritual selves or to live unspiritual lives.

^8:13 If you do live in that way, you are doomed to die; but if by the Spirit you put an end to the misdeeds of the body you will live.

^11:25 At that time Jesus exclaimed, ‘I bless you, Father, Lord of heaven and of earth, for hiding these things from the learned and the clever and revealing them to mere children.

^11:26 Yes, Father, for that is what it pleased you to do.

^11:27 Everything has been entrusted to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, just as no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

^11:28 ‘Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest.

^11:29 Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.[*f]

^11:30 Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.’