Monday, June 20, 2022

Second Kings 17: 5 - 8, 13 - 15, 18

The king of Assyria arrested and imprisoned Hoshea; he then occupied the whole land and attacked Samaria, which he besieged for three years. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria took Samaria, and deported the Israelites to Assyria, settling them in Halah, at the Habor, a river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.

This came about because the Israelites sinned against the Lord, their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt, from under the domination of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and because they venerated other gods. They followed the rites of the nations whom the Lord had cleared out of the way of the Israelites [and the kings of Israel whom they set up].

And though the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and seer, "Give up your evil ways and keep my commandments and statutes, in accordance with the entire law which I enjoined on your fathers and which I sent you by my servants the prophets," they did not listen, but were as stiff-necked as their fathers, who had not believed in the Lord, their God. They rejected his statues, the covenant which he had made with their fathers, and the warnings which he had given them, till, in his great anger against Israel, the Lord put them away out of his sight. Only the tribe of Judah was left.

Psalm 60: 3 - 5, 12 - 13

O God, you have rejected us and broken our defenses; you have been angry; rally us! You have rocked the country and split it open; repair the cracks in it, for it is tottering. You have made your people feel hardships; you have given us stupefying wine.

Have not you, O God, rejected us, so that you go not forth, O God, with our armies? Give us aid against the foe, for worthless is the help of men.

Gospel of Matthew 7: 1 - 5

Jesus said to his disciples:

"If you want to avoid judgment, stop passing judgment. Your verdict on others will be the verdict passed on you. The measure with which you measure will be used to measure you. Why look at the speck in your brother's eye when you miss the plank in you own? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take that speck out of your eye,' while all the time the plank remains in your own? You hypocrite! Remove the plank from you own eye first; then you will see clearly to take the speck from your brother's eye."