AME Zion Universal Reading May 29th 2022

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First Portion

Leviticus Chapter 26

3If you follow My statutes and observe My commandments and perform them,4I will give your rains in their time, the Land will yield its produce, and the tree of the field will give forth its fruit.5Your threshing will last until the vintage, and the vintage will last until the sowing; you will eat your food to satiety, and you will live in security in your land.

Galatians 5:16–26 (NLT): Living by the Spirit’s Power

16 So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. 18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.

19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. 25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. 26 Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.

Second Portion

Leviticus Chapter 26

6And I will grant peace in the Land, and you will lie down with no one to frighten [you]; I will remove wild beasts from the Land, and no army will pass through your land;7You will pursue your enemies, and they will fall by the sword before you;8Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.9I will turn towards you, and I will make you fruitful and increase you, and I will set up My covenant with you.

Monday

Psalm 1:1–6 (NLT):

1 Oh, the joys of those who do not

follow the advice of the wicked,

or stand around with sinners,

or join in with mockers.

2 But they delight in the law of the Lord,

meditating on it day and night.

3 They are like trees planted along the riverbank,

bearing fruit each season.

Their leaves never wither,

and they prosper in all they do.

4 But not the wicked!

They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind.

5 They will be condemned at the time of judgment.

Sinners will have no place among the godly.

6 For the Lord watches over the path of the godly,

but the path of the wicked leads to destruction.

Third Portion

Leviticus Chapter 26

10You will eat very old [produce], and you will clear out the old from before the new.11And I will place My dwelling in your midst, and My Spirit will not reject you;12I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be My people.13I am the Lord, your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt from being slaves to them; and I broke the pegs of your yoke and led you upright.14But if you do not listen to Me and do not perform all these commandments,15and if you despise My statutes and reject My ordinances, not performing any of My commandments, thereby breaking My covenant16then I too, will do the same to you; I will order upon you shock, consumption, fever, and diseases that cause hopeless longing and depression. You will sow your seed in vain, and your enemies will eat it.17I will set My attention against you, and you will be smitten before your enemies. Your enemies will rule over you; you will flee, but no one will be pursuing you.18And if, during these, you will not listen to Me, I will add another seven punishments for your sins:19I will break the pride of your strength and make your skies like iron and your land like copper.20Your strength will be expended in vain; your land will not yield its produce, neither will the tree of the earth give forth its fruit.21And if you treat Me as happenstance, and you do not wish to listen to Me, I will add seven punishments corresponding to your sins:22I will incite the wild beasts of the field against you, and they will bereave you, utterly destroy your livestock and diminish you, and your roads will become desolate.23And if, through these, you will still not be chastised [to return] to Me, and if you [continue to] treat Me happenstance,24Then I too, will treat you as happenstance. I will again add seven punishments for your sins:25I will bring upon you an army that avenges the avenging of a covenant, and you will gather into your cities. I will incite the plague in your midst, and you will be delivered into the enemy's hands,26when I break for you the staff of bread, and ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread by weight, and you will eat, yet not be satisfied.27And if, despite this, you still do not listen to Me, still treating Me as happenstance,28I will treat you with a fury of happenstance, adding again seven [chastisements] for your sins:29You will eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters you will eat.30I will demolish your edifices and cut down your sun idols; I will make your corpses [fall] upon the corpses of your idols, and My Spirit will reject you.31I will lay your cities waste and make your holy places desolate, and I will not partake of your pleasant fragrances.32I will make the Land desolate, so that it will become desolate [also] of your enemies who live in it.33And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will unsheathe the sword after you. Your land will be desolate, and your cities will be laid waste.34Then, the land will be appeased regarding its sabbaticals. During all the days that it remains desolate while you are in the land of your enemies, the Land will rest and thus appease its sabbaticals.35It will rest during all the days that it remains desolate, whatever it had not rested on your sabbaticals, when you lived upon it.36And those of you who survive I will bring fear in their hearts in the lands of their enemies, and the sound of a rustling leaf will pursue them; they will flee as one flees the sword, and they will fall, but there will be no pursuer.37Each man will stumble over his brother, [fleeing] as if from the sword, but without a pursuer. You will not be able to stand up against your enemies.38You will become lost among the nations, and the land of your enemies will consume you.39And because of their iniquity, those of you who survive will rot away in the lands of your enemies; moreover, they will rot away because the iniquities of their fathers are still within them.40They will then confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their fathers their betrayal that they dealt Me, and that they also treated Me as happenstance.41Then I too, will treat them as happenstance and bring them [back while] in the land of their enemies. If then, their clogged heart becomes humbled, then, [their sufferings] will gain appeasement for their iniquity,42and I will remember My covenant [with] Jacob, and also My covenant [with] Isaac, and also My covenant [with] Abraham I will remember. And I will remember the Land,43[For] the Land will be bereft of them, appeasing its sabbaticals when it had been desolate of them, and they will gain appeasement for their iniquity. This was all in retribution for their having despised My ordinances and in retribution for their having rejected My statutes.44But despite all this, while they are in the land of their enemies, I will not despise them nor will I reject them to annihilate them, thereby breaking My covenant that is with them, for I am the Lord their God.45I will remember for them the covenant [made with] the ancestors, whom I took out from the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations, to be a God to them. I am the Lord.46These are the statutes, the ordinances, and the laws that the Lord gave between Himself and the children of Israel on Mount Sinai, by the hand of Moses.

Tuesday

John 15:1–8 (NLT): Jesus, the True Vine

“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more. 3 You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.

5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. 7 But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted! 8 When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.

Fourth Portion

Leviticus Chapter 27

1And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,2Speak to the children of Israel and say to them: When a man expresses a vow, [pledging the] value of lives to the Lord,3the [fixed] value of a male shall be as follows: From twenty years old until sixty years old, the value is fifty silver shekels, according to the holy shekel;4And if she is a female, the value is thirty shekels;5And if [the person is] from five years old until twenty years old, the value of a male shall be twenty shekels, while that of a female shall be ten shekels;6And if [the person is] from one month old until five years old, the value of a male shall be five silver shekels, while the value of a female shall be three silver shekels;7And if [the person is] sixty years old or over, if it is a male, the value shall be fifteen shekels, while for a female, it shall be ten shekels.8But if he is [too] poor to [pay] the valuation [amount], he shall stand him up before the kohen, and the kohen shall evaluate him according to how much the one who is vowing his value can afford.9Now, if an animal of whose type is [fit] to be brought as an offering to the Lord, whatever part of it the person donates to the Lord, shall become holy.10He shall not exchange it or offer a substitute for it, whether it be a good one for a bad one, or a bad one for a good one. But if he does substitute one animal for another animal, [both] that one and its replacement shall be holy.11And if it is any unclean animal, of whose type shall not be brought as an offering to the Lord, then he shall stand up the animal before the kohen.12The kohen shall then evaluate it whether it is good or bad; like the evaluation of the kohen, so shall it be.13But if he redeems it, he shall add its fifth to its value.14And if a man consecrates his house [to be] holy to the Lord, the kohen shall evaluate it whether good or bad; as the kohen evaluates it, so shall it remain.15But if the one who consecrated it redeems his house, he shall add to it a fifth of its valuation money, and it shall be his.

Wednesday

James 3:13–James 4 (NLT): True Wisdom Comes from God

13 If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. 15 For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. 16 For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.

17 But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. 18 And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.

Fifth Portion

Leviticus Chapter 27

16And if a man consecrates some of the field of his inherited property to the Lord, the valuation shall be according to its sowing: an area which requires a chomer of barley seeds at fifty silver shekels.17Now, if he consecrates his field from [when] the Jubilee year [has ended], it shall remain at [its full] valuation.18But if he consecrates his field after the Jubilee, the kohen shall calculate the money for him, according to the remaining years until the [next] Jubilee year, and it shall be deducted from the valuation.19If the one who consecrated it redeems the field, he shall add to it a fifth of the valuation money, and it shall be his.20But if he does not redeem the field, and if he has sold the field to someone else it may no longer be redeemed.21But, when the field leaves in the Jubilee, it shall be holy to the Lord like a field devoted; his inherited property shall belong to the kohen.

Thursday

Isaiah 32:9–Isaiah 33 (NLT):

9 Listen, you women who lie around in ease.

Listen to me, you who are so smug.

10 In a short time—just a little more than a year—

you careless ones will suddenly begin to care.

For your fruit crops will fail,

and the harvest will never take place.

11 Tremble, you women of ease;

throw off your complacency.

Strip off your pretty clothes,

and put on burlap to show your grief.

12 Beat your breasts in sorrow for your bountiful farms

and your fruitful grapevines.

13 For your land will be overgrown with thorns and briers.

Your joyful homes and happy towns will be gone.

14 The palace and the city will be deserted,

and busy towns will be empty.

Wild donkeys will frolic and flocks will graze

in the empty forts and watchtowers

15 until at last the Spirit is poured out

on us from heaven.

Then the wilderness will become a fertile field,

and the fertile field will yield bountiful crops.

16 Justice will rule in the wilderness

and righteousness in the fertile field.

17 And this righteousness will bring peace.

Yes, it will bring quietness and confidence forever.

18 My people will live in safety, quietly at home.

They will be at rest.

19 Even if the forest should be destroyed

and the city torn down,

20 the Lord will greatly bless his people.

Wherever they plant seed, bountiful crops will spring up.

Their cattle and donkeys will graze freely.

Sixth Portion

Leviticus Chapter 27

22And if he consecrates to the Lord a field that he had acquired, that is not part of his inherited property,23the kohen shall calculate for him the amount of the valuation until the Jubilee year, and he shall give the valuation on that day, holy to the Lord.24In the Jubilee year, the field shall return to the one from whom he bought it namely, the one whose inherited land it was.25Every valuation shall be made according to the holy shekel, whereby one shekel is the equivalent of twenty gerahs.26However, a firstborn animal that must be [sacrificed as] a firstborn to the Lord no man may consecrate it; whether it be an ox or sheep, it belongs to the Lord.27Now, if [someone consecrates] an unclean animal, he may redeem [it] by [paying] the valuation, and he shall add its fifth to it, and if it is not redeemed, it shall be sold for the valuation [price].28However, anything that a man devotes to the Lord from any of his property whether a person, an animal, or part of his inherited field shall not be sold, nor shall it be redeemed, [for] all devoted things are holy of holies to the Lord.

Friday

Matthew 7:15–20 (NLT): The Tree and Its Fruit

15 “Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. 16 You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. 18 A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. 19 So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. 20 Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.

Seventh Portion

Leviticus Chapter 27

29Any devoting of a person who has been devoted, need not be redeemed [for] he is to be put to death.30Any tithe of the Land, whether it be from the seed of the land or the fruit of the tree it is the Lord's. It is holy to the Lord.31And if a man redeems some of his tithe, he shall add its fifth to it.32Any tithe of cattle or flock of all that pass under the rod, the tenth shall be holy to the Lord.33He shall not inspect [a tithed animal] for a good or a bad one, nor shall he offer a substitute for it. And if he does replace it, then [both] that one and its replacement are holy; it cannot be redeemed.34These are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses to [tell] the children of Israel on Mount Sinai.

Saturday

Ezekiel 47:1–7 (NLT): The River of Healing

In my vision, the man brought me back to the entrance of the Temple. There I saw a stream flowing east from beneath the door of the Temple and passing to the right of the altar on its south side. 2 The man brought me outside the wall through the north gateway and led me around to the eastern entrance. There I could see the water flowing out through the south side of the east gateway.

3 Measuring as he went, he took me along the stream for 1,750 feet and then led me across. The water was up to my ankles. 4 He measured off another 1,750 feet and led me across again. This time the water was up to my knees. After another 1,750 feet, it was up to my waist. 5 Then he measured another 1,750 feet, and the river was too deep to walk across. It was deep enough to swim in, but too deep to walk through.

6 He asked me, “Have you been watching, son of man?” Then he led me back along the riverbank. 7 When I returned, I was surprised by the sight of many trees growing on both sides of the river.

Maftir Portion

Leviticus Chapter 27

32Any tithe of cattle or flock of all that pass under the rod, the tenth shall be holy to the Lord.33He shall not inspect [a tithed animal] for a good or a bad one, nor shall he offer a substitute for it. And if he does replace it, then [both] that one and its replacement are holy; it cannot be redeemed.34These are the commandments that the Lord commanded Moses to [tell] the children of Israel on Mount Sinai.

Haftarah

Jeremiah Chapter 16

19O Lord, Who are my power and my strength and my refuge in the day of trouble, to You nations will come from the ends of the earth and say, "Only lies have our fathers handed down to us, emptiness in which there is nothing of any avail!20Can a man make gods for himself, and they are no gods?"21Therefore, behold I let them know; at this time I will let them know My power and My might, and they shall know that My Name is the Lord.

Jeremiah Chapter 17

1The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, with a diamond point, engraved on the tablet of their heart and on the horns of your altars.2As they remember their children, [so do they remember] their altars, and their asherim by the green trees upon the high hillocks.3You, who sit upon the mountain in the field, I will give your substance, all your treasures for a spoil! Your high places are made for sin within all your borders.4And you shall release, and [I will avenge Myself] of you because of your heritage that I gave you, and I will make you serve your enemies in the land that you did not know, for you have kindled fire in My nostrils that shall burn forever.5So says the Lord: Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart turns away from the Lord.6He shall be like a lone tree in the plain, and will not see when good comes, and will dwell on parched land in the desert, on salt-sodden soil that is not habitable.7Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord; the Lord shall be his trust.8For he shall be like a tree planted by the water, and by a rivulet spreads its roots, and will not see when heat comes, and its leaves shall be green, and in the year of drought will not be anxious, neither shall it cease from bearing fruit.9The heart is deceitful above all things, and when it is sick, who will recognize it?10I, the Lord, search the heart, test the kidneys, to give everyone according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.11The cuckoo calls but has not laid, so it is he who gathers riches but not by right; he shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end he stands dishonored.12As a Throne of Glory, exalted from the beginning, so is the place of our Sanctuary.13The Lord who is the source of the hopes of Israel, all that forsake You shall be shamed, and they who turn away from me shall be marked out on the earth that they have forsaken the source of living waters, the Lord.14Heal me, O Lord, then shall I be healed; help me, then I shall be helped, for You are my praise!