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The Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany |
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Jesus Calls the First Disciples |
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Lesson -
Judges 6:11-24a |
The Call of Gideon
Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak at Ophrah, which
belonged to Jo'ash the Abiez'rite, as his son Gideon
was beating out wheat in the wine press, to hide it from the Mid'ianites. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, "The LORD is
with you, you mighty man of valor." And Gideon said to him, "Pray, sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has
all this befallen us? And where are all his wonderful deeds which our fathers recounted to us, saying, `Did not the LORD
bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has cast
us off, and given us into the hand of Mid'ian." And the LORD turned to him and said, "Go in this might of yours and
deliver Israel from the hand of Mid'ian; do not I send
you?" And he said to him, "Pray, Lord, how can I deliver Israel? Behold, my
clan is the weakest in Manas'seh, and I am the least
in my family." And the LORD said to him, "But I will be with you, and you shall smite
the Mid'ianites as one man." And he said to him, "If now I have found favor with thee, then show me a
sign that it is thou who speakest with me. Do not depart from here, I pray thee, until I come to thee, and bring
out my present, and set it before thee." And he said,
"I will stay till you return." So Gideon went into his house and prepared a kid, and unleavened cakes
from an ephah of flour; the meat he put in a basket,
and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the oak and
presented them. And the angel of God said to him, "Take the meat and the unleavened
cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them." And he did so. Then the angel of the LORD reached out the tip of the staff that was in
his hand, and touched the meat and the unleavened
cakes; and there sprang up fire from the rock and consumed the flesh and the
unleavened cakes; and the angel of the LORD
vanished from his sight. Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the LORD; and Gideon
said, "Alas, O Lord GOD! For now I have seen the angel
of the LORD face to face." But the LORD said to him, "Peace be to you; do not fear, you shall not
die." Then Gideon built an altar there to the LORD, and called it, The LORD is
peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which
belongs to the Abiez'rites.
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Epistle -
1 Corinthians 15:1-11 |
The Resurrection of Christ
Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the
gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast -- unless you believed in
vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that
Christ died for our sins in accordance with the
scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance
with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of
whom are still alive, though some have fallen
asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle,
because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not
in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any
of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
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Gospel -
Luke 5:1-11 |
Jesus Calls the First Disciples
While the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he was
standing by the lake of Gennes'aret. And he saw two boats by the lake; but the fishermen had gone out of them
and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out
a little from the land. And he sat down and taught
the people from the boat. And when he had ceased speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep
and let down your nets for a catch." And Simon answered, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at
your word I will let down the nets." And when they had done this, they enclosed a great shoal of fish; and as
their nets were breaking, they beckoned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.
And they came and filled both the boats, so that
they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying,
"Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the catch of fish
which they had taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zeb'edee, who were partners
with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid;
henceforth you will be catching men." And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and
followed him.
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