Psalm 146

¹Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
²I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

³Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
⁴When his breath departs he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.

⁵Blessèd is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
⁶who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
⁷who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
⁸the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
⁹The Lord watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

¹⁰The Lord will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord!

Old Testament Reading Exodus 22:20—23:13

²⁰“Whoever sacrifices to any god, other than the Lord alone, shall be devoted to destruction.

²¹“You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt. ²²You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. ²³If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, ²⁴and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.

²⁵“If you lend money to any of my people with you who is poor, you shall not be like a moneylender to him, and you shall not exact interest from him. ²⁶If ever you take your neighbor’s cloak in pledge, you shall return it to him before the sun goes down, ²⁷for that is his only covering, and it is his cloak for his body; in what else shall he sleep? And if he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.

²⁸“You shall not revile God, nor curse a ruler of your people.

²⁹“You shall not delay to offer from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to me. ³⁰You shall do the same with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall be with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.

³¹“You shall be consecrated to me. Therefore you shall not eat any flesh that is torn by beasts in the field; you shall throw it to the dogs.

¹“You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. ²You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, ³nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.

⁴“If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. ⁵If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.

⁶“You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit. ⁷Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked. ⁸And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

⁹“You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

¹⁰“For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, ¹¹but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.

¹²“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.

¹³“Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.”

New Testament Reading Luke 4:16–30

¹⁶[Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. ¹⁷And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those who are oppressed,
¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

²⁰And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” ²²And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” ²³And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘Physician, heal yourself.’ What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.” ²⁴And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. ²⁵But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, ²⁶and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. ²⁷And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” ²⁸When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. ²⁹And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. ³⁰But passing through their midst, he went away.