Psalm 20

¹May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!
May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!
²May he send you help from the sanctuary
and give you support from Zion!
³May he remember all your offerings
and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices!
⁴May he grant you your heart’s desire
and fulfill all your plans!
⁵May we shout for joy over your salvation,
and in the name of our God set up our banners!
May the Lord fulfill all your petitions!
⁶Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed;
he will answer him from his holy heaven
with the saving might of his right hand.
⁷Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
⁸They collapse and fall,
but we rise and stand upright.
⁹O Lord, save the king!
May he answer us when we call.

Old Testament Reading Joel 1

¹The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:

²Hear this, you elders;
give ear, all inhabitants of the land!
Has such a thing happened in your days,
or in the days of your fathers?
³Tell your children of it,
and let your children tell their children,
and their children to another generation.
⁴What the cutting locust left,
the swarming locust has eaten.
What the swarming locust left,
the hopping locust has eaten,
and what the hopping locust left,
the destroying locust has eaten.
⁵Awake, you drunkards, and weep,
and wail, all you drinkers of wine,
because of the sweet wine,
for it is cut off from your mouth.
⁶For a nation has come up against my land,
powerful and beyond number;
its teeth are lions’ teeth,
and it has the fangs of a lioness.
⁷It has laid waste my vine
and splintered my fig tree;
it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down;
their branches are made white.
⁸Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth
for the bridegroom of her youth.
⁹The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off
from the house of the Lord.
The priests mourn,
the ministers of the Lord.
¹⁰The fields are destroyed,
the ground mourns,
because the grain is destroyed,
the wine dries up,
the oil languishes.
¹¹Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil;
wail, O vinedressers,
for the wheat and the barley,
because the harvest of the field has perished.
¹²The vine dries up;
the fig tree languishes.
Pomegranate, palm, and apple,
all the trees of the field are dried up,
and gladness dries up
from the children of man.

¹³Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests;
wail, O ministers of the altar.
Go in, pass the night in sackcloth,
O ministers of my God!
Because grain offering and drink offering
are withheld from the house of your God.
¹⁴Consecrate a fast;
call a solemn assembly.
Gather the elders
and all the inhabitants of the land
to the house of the Lord your God,
and cry out to the Lord.
¹⁵Alas for the day!
For the day of the Lord is near,
and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.
¹⁶Is not the food cut off
before our eyes,
joy and gladness
from the house of our God?
¹⁷The seed shrivels under the clods;
the storehouses are desolate;
the granaries are torn down
because the grain has dried up.
¹⁸How the beasts groan!
The herds of cattle are perplexed
because there is no pasture for them;
even the flocks of sheep suffer.
¹⁹To you, O Lord, I call.
For fire has devoured
the pastures of the wilderness,
and flame has burned
all the trees of the field.
²⁰Even the beasts of the field pant for you
because the water brooks are dried up,
and fire has devoured
the pastures of the wilderness.

New Testament Reading Romans 10

¹Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. ²I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. ³For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. ⁴For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

⁵For Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. ⁶But the righteousness based on faith says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down) ⁷or “‘Who will descend into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). ⁸But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); ⁹because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. ¹¹For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” ¹²For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. ¹³For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

¹⁴But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? ¹⁵And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” ¹⁶But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” ¹⁷So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

¹⁸But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for

“Their voice has gone out to all the earth,
and their words to the ends of the world.”

¹⁹But I ask, did Israel not understand? First Moses says,

“I will make you jealous of those who are not a nation;
with a foolish nation I will make you angry.”

²⁰Then Isaiah is so bold as to say,

“I have been found by those who did not seek me;
I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me.”

²¹But of Israel he says, “All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people.”