Daily Readings - 20/09/2026

^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.’