FIRST READING: JEREMIAH 1:4-10

⁴ Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ⁵ “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

⁶ Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.”

⁷ But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go,and whatever I command you, you shall speak. ⁸ Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you, declares the Lord.”

⁹ Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth. And the Lord said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. ¹⁰ See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

L: This is the Word of the Lord          C: Thanks be to God

PSALM: PSALM 71:1-6

¹ In you, O Lord, do I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame!
² In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
incline your ear to me, and save me!
³ Be to me a rock of refuge,
to which I may continually come;
you have given the command to save me,
for you are my rock and my fortress.

⁴ Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the grasp of the unjust and cruel man.
⁵ For you, O Lord, are my hope,
my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
⁶ Upon you I have leaned from before my birth;
you are he who took me from my mother’s womb.
My praise is continually of you.

L: This is the Word of the Lord          C: Thanks be to God

SECOND READING: 1 CORINTHIANS 13:1-13

¹ If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹² For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

¹³ So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

L: This is the Word of the Lord          C: Thanks be to God.

GOSPEL: LUKE 4:21-30

²¹ And he began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”²² And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” ²³ And he said to them, “Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, ‘“Physician, heal yourself.” What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’” ²⁴ And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. ²⁵ But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, ²⁶ and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. ²⁷ And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” ²⁸ When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. ²⁹ And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. ³⁰ But passing through their midst, he went away.