Proper 4

Deuteronomy 11:18-32

18 “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 20 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land that the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens are above the earth. 22 For if you will be careful to do all this commandment that I command you to do, loving the LORD your God, walking in all his ways, and holding fast to him, 23 then the LORD will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you. 24 Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours. Your territory shall be from the wilderness to the Lebanon, and from the River, the river Euphrates, to the western sea. 25 No one shall be able to stand against you. The LORD your God will lay the fear of you and the dread of you on all the land that you shall tread, as he promised you.

26 “See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known. 29 And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, you shall set the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. 30 Are they not beyond the Jordan, west of the road, toward the going down of the sun, in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Arabah, opposite Gilgal, beside the oak of Moreh? 31 For you are to cross over the Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the LORD your God is giving you. And when you possess it and live in it, 32 you shall be careful to do all the statutes and the rules that I am setting before you today.

Psalm 31

1 In you, O LORD, have I put my trust;*
  let me never be put to confusion; deliver me in your righteousness.

2 Bow down your ear to me,*
  make haste to deliver me,

3 And be my strong rock and house of defense,*
  that you may save me.

4 For you are my strong rock and my castle;*
  be also my guide, and lead me for your Name’s sake.

5 Draw me out of the net that they have laid secretly for me,*
  for you are my strength.

6 Into your hands I commend my spirit,*
  for you have redeemed me, O LORD, O God of truth.

7 I have hated those who hold to worthless vanities,*
  and my trust has been in the LORD.

8 I will be glad and rejoice in your mercy,*
  for you have considered my trouble, and have known my soul in adversities.

9 You have not shut me up in the hand of the enemy,*
  but have set my feet where they may walk at liberty.

10 Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in trouble;*
  my eye is consumed with heaviness, and also my soul and my body.

11 For my life has grown old with heaviness,*
  and my years with mourning.

12 My strength fails me because of my iniquity,*
  and my bones are consumed.

13 I have become a reproof among all my enemies, but especially among my neighbors;*
  my acquaintances are afraid of me, and those who see me in the street shrink from me.

14 I am utterly forgotten, as a dead man, out of mind;*
  I have become like a broken vessel.

15 For I have heard the whispering of the multitude, and fear is on every side,*
  while they conspire together against me and take their counsel to take away my life.

16 But my hope has been in you, O LORD;*
  I have said, “You are my God.”

17 My time is in your hand;*
  deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me.

18 Show your servant the light of your countenance,*
  and save me for your mercy’s sake.

19 Let me not be confounded, O LORD, for I have called upon you;*
  let the ungodly be put to confusion, and be put to silence in the grave.

20 Let the lying lips be put to silence,*
  which cruelly, disdainfully, and despitefully speak against the righteous.

21 Oh, how plentiful is your goodness, which you have laid up for those who fear you,*
  and which you have prepared for those who put their trust in you, even before the children of men!

22 You hide them in the secret place of your presence from those who conspire against them;*
  you keep them in your refuge from the strife of tongues.

23 Thanks be to the LORD,*
  for he has shown me marvellously great kindness in a strong city.

24 But when I was afraid, I said in my haste,*
  “I am cast out of the sight of your eyes.”

25 Nevertheless, you heard the voice of my prayer*
  when I cried unto you.

26 O love the LORD, all you his saints,*
  for the LORD preserves those who are faithful, and plenteously repays the proud.

27 Be strong, and he shall establish your heart,*
  all you that put your trust in the LORD.

Romans 3:21-31

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

27 Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.

Matthew 7:21-27

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”