March 26, 2015

Reading

The Book of Genesis   17: 3-9

17:3	Abram fell prone on his face.
17:4	And God said to him: “I AM, and my covenant is with you, and you will be the father of many nations.
17:5	No longer will your name be called Abram. But you will be called Abraham, for I have established you as the father of many nations.
17:6	And I will cause you to increase very greatly, and I will set you among the nations, and kings will come forth from you.
17:7	And I will establish my covenant between me and you, and with your offspring after you in their generations, by a perpetual covenant: to be God to you and to your offspring after you.
17:8	And I will give to you and to your offspring, the land of your sojourn, all the land of Canaan, as an eternal possession, and I will be their God.”
17:9	Again God said to Abraham: “And you therefore shall keep my covenant, and your offspring after you in their generations.

Gospel

The Holy Gospel According to John   8: 51-59

8:51	Amen, amen, I say to you, if anyone will have kept my word, he will not see death for eternity.”
8:52	Therefore, the Jews said: “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham is dead, and the Prophets; and yet you say, ‘If anyone will have kept my word, he shall not taste death for eternity.’
8:53	Are you greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. So who do you make yourself to be?”
8:54	Jesus responded: “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me. And you say about him that he is your God.
8:55	And yet you have not known him. But I know him. And if I were to say that I do not know him, then I would be like you, a liar. But I know him, and I keep his word.
8:56	Abraham, your father, rejoiced that he might see my day; he saw it and was glad.”
8:57	And so the Jews said to him, “You have not yet reached fifty years, and you have seen Abraham?”
8:58	Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I am.”
8:59	Therefore, they took up stones to cast at him. But Jesus hid himself, and he departed from the temple.