Readings from Christian Scripture
Translations from the Jerusalem Bible
The Book of Jonah, Chapters 3 and 4
The word of Yahweh was addressed a second time to Jonah. "Up!" he
said. "Go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach to them as I told
you to." Jonah set out and went to Nineveh in obedience to the
word of Yahweh. Now Nineveh was a city great beyond compare; it
took three days to cross it. Jonah went on into the city, making a
day's journey. He preached in these words, "Only forty days more
and Nineveh is going to be destroyed." And the people of Nineveh
believed in God; they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from
the greatest to the least. The news reached the king of Nineveh,
who rose from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth and
sat down in ashes. A proclamation was then promulgated throughout
Nineveh, by decree of the king and his ministers, as follows: "Men
and beasts, herds and flocks, are to taste nothing; they must not
eat, they must not drink water. All are to put on sackcloth and
call on God with all their might; and let everyone renounce his
evil behaviour and the wicked things he has done. Who knows if
God will not change his mind and relent, if he will not renounce
his burning wrath, so that we do not perish?" God saw their
efforts to renounce their evil behavior. And God relented: he did
not inflict on them the disaster which he had threatened.
Jonah was very indignant at this; he fell into a rage. He prayed to
Yahweh and said, "Ah! Yahweh, is this not just as I said would
happen when I was still at home? That is why I went and fled to
Tarshish: I knew that you were a God of tenderness and compassion,
slow to anger, rich in graciousness, relenting from evil. So now
Yahweh, please take away my life, for I might as well be dead as go
on living." Yahweh replied, "Are you right to be angry?" Jonah
then went out of the city and sat down to the east of the city.
There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, to
see what would happen to the city. Then Yahweh God arranged that a
castor-oil plant should grow up over Jonah to give shade for his
head and soothe his ill-humour; Jonah was delighted with the
castor-oil plant. But at dawn the next day, God arranged that a
worm should attack the castor-oil plant--and it withered. Next, when
the sun rose, God arranged that there should be a scorching east
wind; the sun beat down so hard on Jonah's head that he was overcome
and begged for death, saying, "I might as well be dead as go on
living." God said to Jonah, "Are you right to be angry about the
castor-oil plant?" He replied, "I have every right to be angry, to
the point of death." Yahweh replied, "You are only upset about a
castor-oil plant which cost you no labour, which you did not make
grow, which sprouted in a night and has perished in a night. And am
I not to feel sorry for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are
more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their
right hand from their left, to say nothing of all the animals?"
The Gospel According to Saint Luke, Chapter 7,
verses 1-10; and The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Chapter 8,
versus 5-13
Then [Jesus] went into Capernaum. There was a centurion there who
had a servant, a favourite of his, who was sick and near death.
Having heard about Jesus, the centurion came up to him and pleaded
with him. "Sir," he said, "my servant is lying at home paralysed
and in great pain." "I will come myself and cure him," Jesus said.
The centurion replied, "Sir, do not put yourself to trouble. I am
not worthy to have you under my roof; just give the word and my
servant will be cured. For I am under authority myself, and have
soldiers under me; and I say to one man: Go, and he goes; to
another: Come here, and he comes; to my servant: Do this, and he
does it." When Jesus heard these words he was astonished at him
and, turning round, said to the crowd following him, "I tell you,
not even in Israel have I found faith like this." And to the
centurion he said, "Go back then; you have believed, so let this be
done for you." And when the centurion got back to the house he
found his servant in perfect health.
The Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 11, verses 1-18
[W]hen Peter came up to Jerusalem the [apostles and brothers in
Judea] criticised him and said, "So you have been visiting the
uncircumcised and eating with them, have you?" Peter in reply gave
them the details point by point: "One day, when I was in the town of
Jaffa," he began, "I fell into a trance as I was praying and had a
vision of something like a big sheet being let down from heaven by
its four corners. This sheet reached the ground quite close to me.
I watched it intently and saw all sorts of animals and wild
beasts--everything possible that could walk, crawl or fly. Then I
heard a voice that said to me, 'Now, Peter; kill and eat!' But I
answered: Certainly not, Lord; nothing profane or unclean has ever
crossed my lips. And a second time the voice spoke from heaven,
'What God has made clean, you have no right to call profane.' This
was repeated three times, before the whole of it was drawn up to
heaven again.
"Just at that moment, three men stopped outside the house where we
were staying; they had been sent from Caesarea to fetch me, and the
Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going back with them.
The six brothers here came with me as well, and we entered the
man's house. He told us he had seen an angel standing in his house
who said, 'Send to Jaffa and fetch Simon known as Peter; he has a
message for you [...] and your entire household.'
"I had scarcely begun to speak when the Holy Spirit came down on
them in the same way as it came on us at the beginning, and I
rememberd that the Lord had said, 'John baptised with water, but you
will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.' I realised then that God
was giving them the identical thing he gave to us [...]; and who was
I to stand in God's way?"
Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13,
verses 1-8, 13
If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without
love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing. If I have
the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and
knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fulness, to move
mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all. If I give
away all that I possess, piece by piece, and if I even let them take
my body to burn it, but am without love, it will do me no good
whatever.
Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never
boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take
offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other
people's sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to
excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.
Love does not come to an end [...].
In short, there are three things that last: faith, hope, and love;
and the greatest of these is love.