I was eager to respond to those who did not consult me. I was anxious to be approached by those who did not seek me. I said, “Here I am! Here I am!” to a nation that did not summon me.
It was not their own swords that won them the land, nor did their own arms make them victorious; rather, it was your right hand and your arm and the light of your face, because you loved them.
Therefore, a Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God, since those who enter into God’s rest also cease from their own labors as God did from his.
But the one who did not know those wishes, and who acted in such a manner as to deserve a beating, will be beaten less severely. Much will be demanded of a person to whom much has been given, and even more will be asked of a person to whom more has been entrusted.
You did not choose me. Rather, I chose you. And I appointed you to go out and bear fruit, fruit that will remain, so that the Father may give you whatever you ask him in my name.
See what love the Father has bestowed on us, enabling us to be called the children of God, and that is what we are. If the world does not recognize us, that is because it did not know him.
Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went inside, and he saw and believed. They still did not understand the Scripture indicating that he must rise from the dead.
I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and rest is the one who is to baptize with the Holy Spirit.’
He brought you low, allowing you to suffer from hunger. He then fed you with manna, something with which your fathers were not familiar, so that you might come to know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the Lord.
Though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.
One day, as Jesus was passing through a field of grain on the Sabbath, his disciples began to pick some heads of grain as they walked along. The Pharisees said to him, “Behold, why are your disciples doing what is forbidden on the Sabbath?”
He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the sacred bread that only the priests were permitted to eat, and he shared it with his companions.” Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. That is why the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
You have given me the shield of your salvation; your right hand sustains me, and your goodness makes me great. You broadened the path beneath me so that my feet have never stumbled.