Daily Readings - 20/10/2026

^2:12 do not forget, I say, that you had no Christ and were excluded from membership of Israel, aliens with no part in the covenants with their Promise; you were immersed in this world, without hope and without God.

^2:13 But now in Christ Jesus, you that used to be so far apart from us have been brought very close, by the blood of Christ.

^2:14 For he is the peace between us, and has made the two into one and broken down the barrier which used to keep them apart, actually destroying in his own person the hostility

^2:15 caused by the rules and decrees of the Law. This was to create one single New Man in himself out of the two of them and by restoring peace

^2:16 through the cross, to unite them both in a single Body and reconcile them with God; In his own person he killed the hostility.

^2:17 Later he came to bring the good news of peace, peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near at hand.[*b]

^2:18 Through him, both of us have in the one Spirit our way to come to the Father.

^2:19 So you are no longer aliens or foreign visitors: you are citizens like all the saints, and part of God’s household.

^2:20 You are part of a building that has the apostles and prophets[*c] for its foundations, and Christ Jesus himself for its main cornerstone.

^2:21 As every structure is aligned on him, all grow into one holy temple in the Lord;

^2:22 and you too, in him, are being built into a house where God lives, in the Spirit.

^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.

^12:35 ‘See that you are dressed for action and have your lamps lit.

^12:36 Be like men waiting for their master to return from the wedding feast, ready to open the door as soon as he comes and knocks.

^12:37 Happy those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. I tell you solemnly, he will put on an apron, sit them down at table and wait on them.

^12:38 It may be in the second watch he comes, or in the third, but happy those servants if he finds them ready.