Daily Readings - 13/08/2026

^77:1 Loudly I cry to God, loudly to God who hears me.

^77:2 When in trouble I sought the Lord, all night long I stretched out my hands, my soul refusing to be consoled.

^77:3 I thought of God and sighed, I pondered and my spirit failed me.

^77:4 You stopped me closing my eyes, I was too distraught to speak;

^77:5 I thought of the olden days, years long past

^77:6 came back to me, I spent all night meditating in my heart, I pondered and my spirit asked this question:

^77:7 ‘If the Lord has rejected you, is this final? If he withholds his favour, is this for ever?

^77:8 Is his love over for good and the promise void for all time?

^77:9 Has God forgotten to show mercy, or has his anger overcome his tenderness? (pause)

^77:10 ‘This’ I said then ‘is what distresses me: that the power of the Most High is no longer what it was.’

^77:11 Remembering Yahweh’s achievements, remembering your marvels in the past,

^77:12 I reflect on all that you did, I ponder on all your achievements.

^77:13 God, your ways are holy! What god so great as God?

^77:14 You are the God who did marvellous things and forced nations to acknowledge your power,

^77:15 with your own arm redeeming your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. (pause)

^77:16 When the waters saw it was you, God, when the waters saw it was you, they recoiled, shuddering to their depths.

^77:17 The clouds poured down water, the sky thundered, your arrows darted out.

^77:18 Your thunder crashed as it rolled, your lightning lit up the world, the earth shuddered and quaked.

^77:19 You strode across the sea, you marched across the ocean, but your steps could not be seen.

^77:20 You guided your people like a flock by the hands of Moses and Aaron.

^18:21 Then Peter went up to him and said, ‘Lord, how often must I forgive my brother if he wrongs me? As often as seven times?’

^18:22 Jesus answered, ‘Not seven, I tell you, but seventy-seven times.

^18:23 ‘And so the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who decided to settle his accounts with his servants.

^18:24 When the reckoning began, they brought him a man who owed ten thousand talents;[*c]

^18:25 but he had no means of paying, so his master gave orders that he should be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, to meet the debt.

^18:26 At this, the servant threw himself down at his master’s feet. “Give me time” he said “and I will pay the whole sum.”

^18:27 And the servant’s master felt so sorry for him that he let him go and cancelled the debt.

^18:28 Now as this servant went out, he happened to meet a fellow servant who owed him one hundred denarii;[*d] and he seized him by the throat and began to throttle him. “Pay what you owe me” he said.

^18:29 His fellow servant fell at his feet and implored him, saying, “Give me time and I will pay you”.

^18:30 But the other would not agree; on the contrary, he had him thrown into prison till he should pay the debt.

^18:31 His fellow servants were deeply distressed when they saw what had happened, and they went to their master and reported the whole affair to him.

^18:32 Then the master sent for him. “You wicked servant,” he said “I cancelled all that debt of yours when you appealed to me.

^18:33 Were you not bound, then, to have pity on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you?”

^18:34 And in his anger the master handed him over to the torturers till he should pay all his debt.

^18:35 And that is how my heavenly Father will deal with you unless you each forgive your brother from your heart.’

^19:1 Jesus had now finished what he wanted to say, and he left Galilee and came into the part of Judaea which is on the far side of the Jordan.