Scripture readings

Ps 82:3 – Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.

Pr 31:5, 8-9 – "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy."

Isa 10:1-2 – Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be your spoil and that you may make the orphan your prey.

Jer 5:28 – and have grown fat and sleek. Their know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the poor and needy.

---

Deuteronomy 5: 12-15

Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the LORD God commanded you.  Six days shall you labour and do all your work.  But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.  Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God  brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.   

---

Deuteronomy 15: 1-2, 12-14 

Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts.  And this is the manner of the remission: every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against a neighbor, not exacting it of a neighbor who is a member of the community, for the LORD’s remission has been proclaimed. ….

If a member of your community, whether a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and works for you for six years, in the seventh year you shall set that person free.  And when you send a male slave out from you a free person, you shall not send him out empty-handed.  Provide for him liberally out of your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress, thus giving him some of the bounty with which the LORD your God has blessed you.  

---

Leviticus 25: 1-25 (excerpts)  

Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in their yield but in the seventh year there shall be a Sabbath of complete rest for the land, a Sabbath for the LORD; you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.  You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your unpruned vine: it shall be a year of complete rest for the land.  You may eat what the land yields during its Sabbath—you, your male and female slaves, your hired and bound labourers who live with you; for your livestock also and for the wild animals in your land all its yield shall be for food. 

And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and you shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.  It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return every one to his own property and every one of you to your family. … The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants.  Throughout the land that you hold you shall provide for the redemption of the land. … But if there are not sufficient means to recover it, what was sold will remain with the purchaser until the year of jubilee; in the jubilee it shall be released and the property shall be returned. 

---

Ezekiel 34:2-6

Thus says the LORD God: Ah you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep.  You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you ruled them.  So they were scattered because there was no shepherd; and scattered they became food for the wild animals.  My sheep were scattered, they wandered over the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with no one to search for them.   

---

Jeremiah 22:13-16, 18a, 19

Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness,

            and his upper rooms by injustice;

who makes his neighbours work for nothing,

            and does not give them their wages.

who says, “I will build myself a spacious house

            with large upper rooms,’

who cuts out windows for it,

            paneling it with cedar,

and painting it with vermilion.

Are you a king

            because you compete in cedar?

Did not your father eat and drink

            and do justice and righteousness?

            Then it was well with him.

He judged the cause of the poor and needy;

            then it was well.

Is this not to know me?

Therefore, thus says the LORD concerning King Jehoiakim….

“With the burial of a donkey shall he be buried—

Dragged off and thrown out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.” 

---

James 5:1-6 

Come now you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you.  Your riches are rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten.  Your gold and silver have rusted and their rust will be evidence against you and it will eat your flesh like fire.  You have laid up treasure for the last days.  Listen! The wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.  You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.  You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.

---

Revelation 15: 17-18

We give you thanks, Lord God Almighty

            who are and who were

for you have taken your great power and begun to reign.

The nations raged

            but your wrath has come

            and the time for judging the dead

for rewarding your servants, the prophets

and saints, and all who fear your name,

            both small and great,

and for destroying those who destroy the earth. 

---

Matthew 5: 14, 16

You are the light of the world: a city built on a hill cannot be hid. … In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

---

Matthew 6:9-12 (excerpts)

Our Father in heaven…your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors.

---

Acts 2:44-45; 4:34-35

All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all as any had need.   There was not a needy person among them for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold.  They laid it at the apostles feet and it was distributed to each as any had need.

---

1 Corinthians 1:26-28 

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters; not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.  But God chose what is foolish in this world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in this world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.

---

Isaiah 51:12-14

I, I am he who comforts you;

why then are you afraid of a mere mortal who must die,

a human being who fades like grass?

You have forgotten the LORD your Maker

who stretched out the heavens

and laid the foundations of the earth.

You fear continually all day long

because of the fury of the oppressor,

who is bent on destruction.

But where is the fury of the oppressor?

The oppressed shall be speedily released:

they shall not die and go down into the pit,

nor shall they lack bread.

---

Isaiah 65:21-22

They shall build houses and inhabit them;

they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

They shall not build and another inhabit;

they shall not plant and another eat.

---

Micah 4:4

They shall all sit under their own vines and their own fig trees,
And no one shall make them afraid.

---

Hebrews 11:1

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

---

Praise for Earth's abundance

Psalm 104:1-24

Bless the Lord, O my soul.
O Lord my God, you are very great.
You are clothed with honor and majesty,
wrapped in light as with a garment.
You stretch out the heavens like a tent,
you set the beams of your chambers on the waters,
you make the clouds your chariot,
you ride on the wings of the wind,
you make the winds your messengers,
fire and flame your ministers.
You set the earth on its foundations,
so that it shall never be shaken.
You cover it with the deep as with a garment;
the waters stood above the mountains.
At your rebuke they flee;
at the sound of your thunder they take to flight.
They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys
to the place that you appointed for them.
You set a boundary that they may not pass,
so that they might not again cover the earth.
You make springs gush forth in the valleys;
they flow between the hills,
giving drink to every wild animal;
the wild asses quench their thirst.
By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation;
they sing among the branches.
From your lofty abode you water the mountains;
the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
You cause the grass to grow for the cattle,
and plants for people to use,
to bring forth food from the earth,
and wine to gladden the human heart,
oil to make the face shine,
and bread to strengthen the human heart.
The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly,
the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
In them the birds build their nests;
the stork has its home in the fir trees.
The high mountains are for the wild goats;
the rocks are a refuge for the coneys.
You have made the moon to mark the seasons;
the sun knows its time for setting.
You make darkness, and it is night,
when all the animals of the forest come creeping out.
The young lions roar for their prey,
seeking their food from God.
When the sun rises, they withdraw and lie down in their dens.
People go out to their work and to their labor until the evening.
O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.