Sunday, August 10, 2025

¹Rejoice in the LORD, you righteous! Praise is fitting for the upright. ¹²Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people whom he has chosen for his own inheritance. ¹⁸Behold, the LORD’s eye is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his loving kindness, ¹⁹to deliver their soul from death, to keep them alive in famine. ²⁰Our soul has waited for the LORD. He is our help and our shield. ²¹For our heart rejoices in him, because we have trusted in his holy name. ²²Let your loving kindness be on us, LORD, since we have hoped in you.

¹Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen. ²For by this, the elders obtained approval.

³²“Don’t be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. ³³Sell what you have and give gifts to the needy. Make for yourselves purses which don’t grow old, a treasure in the heavens that doesn’t fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. ³⁴For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. ³⁵“Let your waist be dressed and your lamps burning. ³⁶Be like men watching for their lord when he returns from the wedding feast, that when he comes and knocks, they may immediately open to him. ³⁷Blessed are those servants whom the lord will find watching when he comes. Most certainly I tell you that he will dress himself, make them recline, and will come and serve them. ³⁸They will be blessed if he comes in the second or third watch and finds them so. ³⁹But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what hour the thief was coming, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. ⁴⁰Therefore be ready also, for the Son of Man is coming in an hour that you don’t expect him.” ⁴¹Peter said to him, “Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everybody?” ⁴²The Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise steward, whom his lord will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the right times? ⁴³Blessed is that servant whom his lord will find doing so when he comes. ⁴⁴Truly I tell you that he will set him over all that he has. ⁴⁵But if that servant says in his heart, ‘My lord delays his coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and drink and to be drunken, ⁴⁶then the lord of that servant will come in a day when he isn’t expecting him and in an hour that he doesn’t know, and will cut him in two, and place his portion with the unfaithful. ⁴⁷That servant who knew his lord’s will, and didn’t prepare nor do what he wanted, will be beaten with many stripes, ⁴⁸but he who didn’t know, and did things worthy of stripes, will be beaten with few stripes. To whomever much is given, of him will much be required; and to whom much was entrusted, of him more will be asked.