Psalm 9:1–8

¹I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
²I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
³When my enemies turn back,
they stumble and perish before your presence.
⁴For you have maintained my just cause;
you have sat on the throne, giving righteous judgment.
⁵You have rebuked the nations; you have made the wicked perish;
you have blotted out their name forever and ever.
⁶The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins;
their cities you rooted out;
the very memory of them has perished.
⁷But the Lord sits enthroned forever;
he has established his throne for justice,
⁸and he judges the world with righteousness;
he judges the peoples with uprightness.

Old Testament Reading Genesis 2:4–25

⁴These are the generations
of the heavens and the earth when they were created,
in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

⁵When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, ⁶and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground— ⁷then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. ⁸And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. ⁹And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

¹⁰A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. ¹¹The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. ¹²And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. ¹³The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. ¹⁴And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

¹⁵The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. ¹⁶And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, ¹⁷but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

¹⁸Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” ¹⁹So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. ²⁰The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. ²¹So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. ²²And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. ²³Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”

²⁴Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. ²⁵And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

New Testament Reading Mark 1:29–45

²⁹And immediately he left the synagogue and entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. ³⁰Now Simon’s mother-in-law lay ill with a fever, and immediately they told him about her. ³¹And he came and took her by the hand and lifted her up, and the fever left her, and she began to serve them.

³²That evening at sundown they brought to him all who were sick or oppressed by demons. ³³And the whole city was gathered together at the door. ³⁴And he healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons. And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him.

³⁵And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. ³⁶And Simon and those who were with him searched for him, ³⁷and they found him and said to him, “Everyone is looking for you.” ³⁸And he said to them, “Let us go on to the next towns, that I may preach there also, for that is why I came out.” ³⁹And he went throughout all Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and casting out demons.

⁴⁰And a leper came to him, imploring him, and kneeling said to him, “If you will, you can make me clean.” ⁴¹Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” ⁴²And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean. ⁴³And Jesus sternly charged him and sent him away at once, ⁴⁴and said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them.” ⁴⁵But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every quarter.