August 26, 2015

Reading

First Letter to Thessalonians 2: 9- 13

2:9 For you remember, brothers, our hardship and weariness. We preached the Gospel of God among you, working night and day, so that we would not be burdensome to any of you.

2:10 You are witnesses, as is God, of how holy and just and blameless we were with you who have believed.

2:11 And you know the manner, with each one of you, like a father with his sons,

2:12 in which we were pleading with you and consoling you, bearing witness, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of God, who has called you into his kingdom and glory.

2:13 For this reason also, we give thanks to God without ceasing: because, when you had accepted from us the Word of the hearing of God, you accepted it not as the word of men, but (as it truly is) as the Word of God, who is working in you who have believed.

Gospel

Matthew 23: 27- 32

23:27 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed sepulchers, which outwardly appear brilliant to men, yet truly, inside, they are filled with the bones of the dead and with all filth.

23:28 So also, you certainly appear to men outwardly to be just. But inwardly you are filled with hypocrisy and iniquity.

23:29 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, who build the sepulchers of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the just.

23:30 And then you say, ‘If we had been there in the days of our fathers, we would not have joined with them in the blood of the prophets.’

23:31 And so you are witnesses against yourselves, that you are the sons of those who killed the prophets.

23:32 Complete, then, the measure of your fathers.