7th March

A reading from the book of Exodus

The ten words speak to the people who are dependents of Abraham and Sara, Isaac and Rebecca

Here they are coming to understand more fully this own individual relationship with God, not just through family, but also through loving kindness in their behaviour.

Listen to the Ten Words from Exodus Chapter 20.

Then God spoke all these words saying,
“I am Adonai your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
“You shall have no other gods before Me.  Do not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or on the earth below or in the water under the earth. Do not bow down to them, do not let anyone make you serve them. For I, Adonai your God, am a jealous God, bringing the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing loving-kindness to the thousands of generations of those who love me and keep my mitzvot.
“You must not take the Name of Adonai your God in vain, for Adonai will not hold him guiltless that takes His Name in vain.
“Remember Yom Shabbat, to keep it holy.  You are to work six days, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Shabbat to Adonai your God. In it you shall not do any work—not you, nor your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, your cattle, nor the outsider that is within your gates.  For in six days Adonai made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Thus Adonai blessed Yom Shabbat, and made it holy.
“Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long upon the land which Adonai your God is giving you.
“Do not murder.
“Do not commit adultery.
“Do not steal.
“Do not bear false witness against your neighbour.
“Do not covet your neighbour’s house, your neighbour’s wife, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour’s.”
All the people witnessed the thundering and the lightning, and the sound of the shofar, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled and stood far off.  So they said to Moses, “You, speak to us, and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.”
So Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid, for God has come to test you, so that His fear may be in you, so that you do not sin.”

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. 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 the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the 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, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”