March 12 (Exodus 23; John 2; Job 41; 2 Corinthians 11)

A reading from Exodus.

You shall not spread a false report.

You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.

You shall not fall in with the many to do evil.

Nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice.

Nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.

If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him.

If you see the donkey of one who hates you, lying down under its burden, you shall refrain

from leaving him with it, you shall rescue it with him.

You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit.

Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not

acquit the wicked.

You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear sighted, and subvert the cause of

those who are in the right.

You shall not oppress a sojourner.

You know the heart of a sojourner, for you are sojourners in the land of Egypt.

For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield.

But the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie follow, that the poor of your people

may eat, and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat.

You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.

Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and

your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman and the alien may be refreshed.

Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other

gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.

Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me.

You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread.

As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time

in the mouth of a bib.

For in it you came out of Egypt.

None shall appear before me empty-handed.

You shall keep the feast of harvest, of the first fruits of your labor, of what you sow

in the field.

You shall keep the feast of in gathering, at the end of the year, when you gather in from

the field, the fruit of your labor.

Three times in the year shall all your meals appear before the Lord God.

You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the fat of my

feast remain until the morning.

The best of the first fruits of your grind, you shall bring into the house of the Lord your

God.

You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

Behold I send an angel before you to guard you on the way, and to bring you to the place

that I have prepared.

Pay careful attention to him, and obey his voice.

Do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression.

For my name is in him.

But if you carefully obey his voice, and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy

to your enemies, and an adversary to your adversaries.

When my angel goes before you, and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites, and

the Parasites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, you

shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly

overthrow them and break their pillars and pieces.

You shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and

I will take sickness away from among you.

None shall miscarry, or be barren in your land.

I will fulfill the number of your days.

I will send my terror before you, and will throw into confusion all the people against

whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.

And I will send Hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and

the Hittites from before you.

I will not drive the might from before you in one year, less the land become desolate,

and the wild beasts multiply against you.

Little by little I will drive the might from before you, until you have increased, and

possess the land.

And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the

wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand,

and you shall drive the might before you.

You shall make no covenant with them and their gods.

They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me.

For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.

The reading from John.

On the third day there was a wedding at Canaan Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.

Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples.

When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine.

And Jesus said to her, woman, what does this have to do with me?

My hour has not yet come.

His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you.

Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rights of purification, each holding

twenty or thirty gallons.

Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water, and they fill them up to the brim,

and he said to them, now draw someite and take it to the master of the feast.

So they took it.

When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where

it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew, the master of the feast

called the bridegroom and said to him, everyone served the good wine first, and when people

have drunk freely, then the poor wine.

But you have kept the good wine until now.

This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Kina in Galilee, and manifested his glory,

and his disciples believed in him.

After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples,

and they stayed there for a few days.

The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money

changers sitting there, and making a whip of cords he drove them all out of the temple

with the sheep and oxen, and he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned

their tables, and he told those who sold the pigeons, take these things away, do not make

my father's house a house of trade.

His disciples remembered that it was written, zeal for your house will consume me.

So the Jews said to him, what sign do you show us for doing these things?

Jesus answered them, destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

The Jews then said, it has taken 46 years to build this temple, and will you raise it

up in three days?

But he was speaking about the temple of his body.

And therefore he was raised from the dead.

His disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the scripture and the

word that Jesus had spoken.

Now, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they

saw the signs that he was doing.

But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed

no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.

A reading from Job

Can you draw out Leviathan with a fish hook, or press down his tongue with a cord?

Can you put a rope in his nose, or pierce his jaw with a hook?

Will he make many plays to you?

Will he speak to you soft words?

Will he make a covenant with you, to take him for your servant forever?

Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you put him on a leash for your girls?

Will traders bargain over him?

Will they divide him up among the merchants?

Can you fill his skin with harpons, or his head with fishing spears?

Lay your hands on him, remember the battle, you will not do it again.

He hold the hope of a man as false, he is laid low even at the sight of him.

No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up.

Who then is he, who can stand before me?

Who has first given to me that I should repay him?

Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine.

I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, or his mighty strength, or his goodly

frame.

He can strip off his outer garment.

He would come near him with a bridle.

He can open the doors of his face, around his teeth his terror.

His back is made of rows of shields, shut up closely as with a seal.

One is so near to another that no air can come between them.

They are joined one to another.

They clasp each other and cannot be separated.

His sneezing flash forth light, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn.

Out of his mouth go flaming torches, sparks of fire leap forth.

Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes.

His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth.

In his neck abide strength, and terror dances before him.

The folds of his flesh stick together, firmly cast on him, and a movable.

His heart as hard as a stone, hard as the lower mill's stone.

When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid, at the crashing they are beside themselves.

Though the sword reaches him, it does not avail, nor the spear, the dart, or the javelin.

He counts iron as straw, and bronze is rotten wood.

The arrow cannot make him flee.

For him, sling stones are turned to stubble.

Clubs are counted as stubble.

He laughs at the rattle of javelins.

His underparts are like sharp potchards.

He spreads himself like a threshing sledge on the mire.

He makes the deep boil like a pot.

He makes the sea like a pot of ointment.

Behind him he leaves a shining wick.

One would think the deep to be white haired.

On earth there is not his like, a creature without fear.

He sees everything that is high.

He is king, over all the sons of pride.

A reading from second current Theons.

I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness.

Do bear with me.

Or I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present

you as a pure virgin to Christ.

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be

led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you

receive a different spirit from the one you received,

or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily

enough.

Indeed, I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super apostles.

Even if I am unskilled in speaking, I am not so in knowledge.

Indeed, in every way we have made this play into you in all things.

Or did I commit a sin in humbling myself so that you might be exalted because I preached

God's gospel to you free of charge?

I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you.

And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone for the brothers who came

from Macedonia supplied my need.

So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way.

As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting of mine will not be silenced in the regions

of Akeia.

And why?

Because I do not love you.

God knows I do.

And what I am doing I will continue to do in order to undermine the claim of those who

would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do.

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness.

Their end will correspond to their deeds.

I repeat, let no one think me foolish, but even if you do, accept me as a fool, so that

I too may boast a little.

What I am saying with its boastful confidence, I say not as the Lord would, but as a fool.

Since many boast according to the flesh, I too will boast.

For you gladly bear with fools, being wise yourselves.

For you bear it if someone makes slaves of you, or devours you, or takes advantage of you,

or puts on airs, or strikes you in the face.

To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that.

But whatever anyone else dares to boast of, I am speaking as a fool.

I also dare to boast of that.

Are they Hebrews?

So am I.

Are they Israelites?

So am I.

Are they offspring of Abraham?

So am I.

Are they servants of Christ?

I am a better one.

I am talking like a madman, with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless

beatings, and often near death.

Five times I received at the hands of the Jews, the forty lashes less one.

Three times I was beaten with rods.

Once I was stoned.

Three times I was shipwrecked.

A night and a day I was adrift at sea.

On frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people,

danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger

from false brothers.

In toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food,

in cold and exposure.

And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all

the churches.

Who is weak and I am not weak?

Who is made to fall and I am not indignant?

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.

The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying.

At Damascus, the governor under King Aritas, was guarding the city of Damascus in order to

seize me.

But I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.