Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Didn’t God choose the poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?
I advise you to buy from me gold refined in the fire so that you may be rich, white clothes so that you may be dressed and your shameful nakedness not be exposed, and ointment to spread on your eyes so that you may see.
Then she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him tightly in cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.
He grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He didn’t have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him.
Isn’t this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us? ’ So they were offended by him.
‘But, so we won’t offend them, go to the sea, cast in a fish hook, and take the first fish that you catch. When you open its mouth you’ll find a coin. Take it and give it to them for me and you.’
The Lord says this: ‘As the new wine is found in a bunch of grapes, and one says, “Don’t destroy it, for there’s some good in it,” so I will act because of my servants and not destroy them all.
I will not keep silent because of Zion, and I will not keep still because of Jerusalem, until her righteousness shines like a bright light, and her salvation like a flaming torch.