Psalm 119:153–160

Resh

¹⁵³Look on my affliction and deliver me,
for I do not forget your law.
¹⁵⁴Plead my cause and redeem me;
give me life according to your promise!
¹⁵⁵Salvation is far from the wicked,
for they do not seek your statutes.
¹⁵⁶Great is your mercy, O Lord;
give me life according to your just decrees.
¹⁵⁷Many are my persecutors and my adversaries,
but I do not swerve from your testimonies.
¹⁵⁸I look at the faithless with disgust,
because they do not keep your commands.
¹⁵⁹Consider how I love your precepts!
Give me life according to your steadfast love.
¹⁶⁰The sum of your word is truth,
and every one of your just and righteous decrees endures forever.

Old Testament Reading Job 10

¹“I loathe my life;
I will give free utterance to my complaint;
I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
²I will say to God, Do not condemn me;
let me know why you contend against me.
³Does it seem good to you to oppress,
to despise the work of your hands
and favor the designs of the wicked?
⁴Have you eyes of flesh?
Do you see as man sees?
⁵Are your days as the days of man,
or your years as a man’s years,
⁶that you seek out my iniquity
and search for my sin,
⁷although you know that I am not guilty,
and there is none to deliver out of your hand?
⁸Your hands fashioned and made me,
and now you have destroyed me altogether.
⁹Remember that you have made me like clay;
and will you return me to the dust?
¹⁰Did you not pour me out like milk
and curdle me like cheese?
¹¹You clothed me with skin and flesh,
and knit me together with bones and sinews.
¹²You have granted me life and steadfast love,
and your care has preserved my spirit.
¹³Yet these things you hid in your heart;
I know that this was your purpose.
¹⁴If I sin, you watch me
and do not acquit me of my iniquity.
¹⁵If I am guilty, woe to me!
If I am in the right, I cannot lift up my head,
for I am filled with disgrace
and look on my affliction.
¹⁶And were my head lifted up, you would hunt me like a lion
and again work wonders against me.
¹⁷You renew your witnesses against me
and increase your vexation toward me;
you bring fresh troops against me.
¹⁸“Why did you bring me out from the womb?
Would that I had died before any eye had seen me
¹⁹and were as though I had not been,
carried from the womb to the grave.
²⁰Are not my days few?
Then cease, and leave me alone, that I may find a little cheer
²¹before I go—and I shall not return—
to the land of darkness and deep shadow,
²²the land of gloom like thick darkness,
like deep shadow without any order,
where light is as thick darkness.”

New Testament Reading
John 5:1–18

1After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

2Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. 3In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” 7The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” 8Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” 9And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked.

Now that day was the Sabbath. 10So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” 11But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’” 12They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” 13Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. 14Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” 15The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. 16And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. 17But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

18This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.