Daily Readings - 19/09/2026

^15:35 Someone may ask, ‘How are dead people raised, and what sort of body do they have when they come back?’

^15:36 They are stupid questions. Whatever you sow in the ground has to die before it is given new life

^15:37 and the thing that you sow is not what is going to come; you sow a bare grain, say of wheat or something like that,

^15:42 It is the same with the resurrection of the dead: the thing that is sown is perishable but what is raised is imperishable;

^15:43 the thing that is sown is contemptible but what is raised is glorious; the thing that is sown is weak but what is raised is powerful;

^15:44 when it is sown it embodies the soul, when it is raised it embodies the spirit. If the soul has its own embodiment, so does the spirit have its own embodiment.

^15:45 The first man, Adam, as scripture says, became a living soul; but the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit.

^15:46 That is, first the one with the soul, not the spirit, and after that, the one with the spirit.

^15:47 The first man, being from the earth, is earthly by nature; the second man is from heaven.

^15:48 As this earthly man was, so are we on earth; and as the heavenly man is, so are we in heaven.

^15:49 And we, who have been modelled on the earthly man, will be modelled on the heavenly man.

^55:1 God, hear my prayer, do not hide from my petition,

^55:2 give me a hearing, answer me, I cannot rest for complaining. I shudder

^55:3 at the enemy’s shouts, at the howling of the wicked; they bring misery crashing down on me, and vent their fury on me.

^55:4 My heart aches in my breast, Death’s terrors assail me,

^55:5 fear and trembling descend on me, horror overwhelms me.

^55:6 And I say, ‘Oh for the wings of a dove to fly away and find rest’.

^55:7 How far I would take my flight, and make a new home in the desert! (pause)

^55:8 There I should soon find shelter from the raging wind, and from the tempest,

^55:9 Lord, that destroys, and from their malicious tongues. I can see how Violence and Discord fill the city

^55:10 day and night they stalk together along the city walls. Sorrow and Misery live inside,

^55:11 Ruin is an inmate; Tyranny and Treachery are never absent from its central square.

^55:12 Were it an enemy who insulted me, I could put up with that; had a rival got the better of me, I could hide from him.

^55:13 But you, a man of my own rank, a colleague and a friend,

^55:14 to whom sweet conversation bound me in the house of God! May they recoil in disorder,

^55:15 may Death descend on them, may they go down, still living, to Sheol – since Evil shares their homes.

^55:16 I, for myself, appeal to God and Yahweh saves me;

^55:17 evening, morning, noon, I complain, I groan; he will hear me calling.

^55:18 His peace can ransom me from the war being waged on me. How many are ranged against me!

^55:19 But God will hear me. Sovereign from the first, he will humble them; (Pause) no change of heart for them, since they do not fear God.

^55:20 He[*a] has attacked his friends, he has gone back on his word;

^55:21 though his mouth is smoother than butter, he has war in his heart; his words may soothe more than oil, but they are naked swords.

^55:22 Unload your burden on to Yahweh, and he will support you; he will never permit the virtuous to falter.

^55:23 As for these murderous, these treacherous men, you, God, will push them down to the deepest Pit before half their days are out. For my part, I put my trust in you.

^8:4 With a large crowd gathering and people from every town finding their way to him, he used this parable:

^8:5 ‘A sower went out to sow his seed. As he sowed, some fell on the edge of the path and was trampled on; and the birds of the air ate it up.

^8:6 Some seed fell on rock, and when it came up it withered away, having no moisture.

^8:7 Some seed fell amongst thorns and the thorns grew with it and choked it.

^8:8 And some seed fell into rich soil and grew and produced its crop a hundredfold.’ Saying this he cried, ‘Listen, anyone who has ears to hear!’

^8:9 His disciples asked him what this parable might mean,

^8:10 and he said, The mysteries of the kingdom of God are revealed to you; for the rest there are only parables, so that they may see but not perceive, listen but not understand[*a]

^8:11 ‘This, then, is what the parable means: the seed is the word of God.

^8:12 Those on the edge of the path are people who have heard it, and then the devil comes and carries away the word from their hearts in case they should believe and be saved.

^8:13 Those on the rock are people who, when they first hear it, welcome the word with joy. But these have no root; they believe for a while, and in time of trial they give up.

^8:14 As for the part that fell into thorns, this is people who have heard, but as they go on their way they are choked by the worries and riches and pleasures of life and do not reach maturity.

^8:15 As for the part in the rich soil, this is people with a noble and generous heart who have heard the word and take it to themselves and yield a harvest through their perseverance.

^55:6 Seek Yahweh while he is still to be found, call to him while he is still near.

^55:7 Let the wicked man abandon his way, the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn back to Yahweh who will take pity on him, to our God who is rich in forgiving;

^55:8 for my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways not your ways – it is Yahweh who speaks.

^55:9 Yes, the heavens are as high above earth as my ways are above your ways, my thoughts above your thoughts.

^144:1 Blessed be Yahweh, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle,

^144:2 my love, my bastion, my citadel, my saviour, I shelter behind him, my shield, he makes the nations submit to me.

^144:3 Yahweh, what is man, that you should notice him? A human being, that you should think about him?

^144:4 Man’s life, a mere puff of wind, his days, as fugitive as shadows.

^144:5 Yahweh, lower your heavens, come down to us! Touch the mountains, make them smoke,

^144:6 flash your lightning – scatter them, shoot your arrows – rout them.

^144:7 Reach down your hand from above, save me, rescue me from deep waters, from the power of aliens

^144:8 who tell nothing but lies, who are prepared to swear to falsehood!

^144:9 God, I have made a new song for you to be played on the ten-string lyre,

^144:10 you who give victory to kings and safety to your servant David. From peril of sword

^144:11 save me, rescue me from the power of aliens who tell nothing but lies, who are prepared to swear to falsehood!

^144:12 May our sons be like plants growing strong from their earliest days, our daughters like corner-statues,[*a] carvings fit for a palace;

^144:13 may our barns overflow with every possible crop, may the sheep in our fields be counted in their thousands and tens of thousands,

^144:14 may our cattle be stout and strong; and may there be an end of raids and exile, and of panic in our streets.

^144:15 Happy the nation of whom this is true, happy the nation whose God is Yahweh!

^1:20 My one hope and trust is that I shall never have to admit defeat, but that now as always I shall have the courage for Christ to be glorified in my body, whether by my life or by my death.

^1:21 Life to me, of course, is Christ, but then death would bring me something more;

^1:22 but then again, if living in this body means doing work which is having good results-I do not know what I should choose.

^1:23 I am caught in this dilemma: I want to be gone and be with Christ, which would be very much the better,

^1:24 but for me to stay alive in this body is a more urgent need for your sake.

^1:27 Avoid anything in your everyday lives that would be unworthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come to you and see for myself, or stay at a distance and only hear about you, I shall know that you are unanimous in meeting the attack with firm resistance, united by your love for the faith of the gospel

^20:1 ‘Now the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner going out at daybreak to hire workers for his vineyard.

^20:2 He made an agreement with the workers for one denarius a day, and sent them to his vineyard.

^20:3 Going out at about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the market place

^20:4 and said to them, “You go to my vineyard too and I will give you a fair wage”.

^20:5 So they went. At about the sixth hour and again at about the ninth hour, he went out and did the same.

^20:6 Then at about the eleventh hour he went out and found more men standing round, and he said to them, “Why have you been standing here idle all day?”

^20:7 “Because no one has hired us” they answered. He said to them, “You go into my vineyard too”.

^20:8 In the evening, the owner of the vineyard said to his bailiff, “Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last arrivals and ending with the first”.

^20:9 So those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came forward and received one denarius each.

^20:10 When the first came, they expected to get more, but they too received one denarius each.

^20:11 They took it, but grumbled at the landowner.

^20:12 “The men who came last” they said “have done only one hour, and you have treated them the same as us, though we have done a heavy day’s work in all the heat.”

^20:13 He answered one of them and said, “My friend, I am not being unjust to you; did we not agree on one denarius?

^20:14 Take your earnings and go. I choose to pay the last comer as much as I pay you.

^20:15 Have I no right to do what I like with my own? Why be envious because I am generous?”

^20:16 Thus the last will be first, and the first, last.’