AME Zion Universal Reading May 8th 2022

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First Portion

Leviticus Chapter 19

1And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,2Speak to the entire congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them, You shall be holy, for I, the Lord, your God, am holy.3Every man shall fear his mother and his father, and you shall observe My Sabbaths. I am the Lord, your God.4You shall not turn to the worthless idols, nor shall you make molten deities for yourselves. I am the Lord, your God.5When you slaughter a peace offering to the Lord, you shall slaughter it for your acceptance.6It may be eaten on the day you slaughter it and on the morrow, but anything left over until the third day, shall be burned in fire.7And if it would be eaten on the third day, it is abominable; it shall not be accepted.8And whoever eats it shall bear his sin, because he has profaned what is holy to the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from his people.9When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not fully reap the corner of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest.10And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you collect the [fallen] individual grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger. I am the Lord, your God.11You shall not steal. You shall not deny falsely. You shall not lie, one man to his fellow.12You shall not swear falsely by My Name, thereby profaning the Name of your God. I am the Lord.13You shall not oppress your fellow. You shall not rob. The hired worker's wage shall not remain with you overnight until morning.14You shall not curse a deaf person. You shall not place a stumbling block before a blind person, and you shall fear your God. I am the Lord.

Sunday

Romans 8:18–30 (NLT): The Future Glory

18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. 19 For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, 21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. 24 We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. 25 But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)

26 And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. 27 And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. 28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29 For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.

Second Portion

Leviticus Chapter 19

15You shall commit no injustice in judgment; you shall not favor a poor person or respect a great man; you shall judge your fellow with righteousness.16You shall not go around as a gossipmonger amidst your people. You shall not stand by [the shedding of] your fellow's blood. I am the Lord.17You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your fellow, but you shall not bear a sin on his account.18You shall neither take revenge from nor bear a grudge against the members of your people; you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.19You shall observe My statutes: You shall not crossbreed your livestock with different species. You shall not sow your field with a mixture of seeds, and a garment which has a mixture of shaatnez shall not come upon you.20If a man lies carnally with a woman, and she is a handmaid designated for a man, and she had not been [fully] redeemed nor had her document of emancipation been granted her, there shall be an investigation; they shall not be put to death, because she had not been [completely] freed.21He shall bring his guilt offering to the Lord, to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, a guilt offering ram.22And the kohen shall effect atonement for him with the guilt offering ram, before the Lord, for the sin that he had committed; and he shall be forgiven for the sin that he had committed.

Monday

Romans 6:15–Romans 7 (NLT):

15 Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not! 16 Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. 17 Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. 18 Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.

19 Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.

20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. 21 And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. 22 But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Third Portion

Leviticus Chapter 19

23When you come to the Land and you plant any food tree, you shall surely block its fruit [from use]; it shall be blocked from you [from use] for three years, not to be eaten.24And in the fourth year, all its fruit shall be holy, a praise to the Lord.25And in the fifth year, you may eat its fruit; [do this, in order] to increase its produce for you. I am the Lord, your God.26You shall not eat over the blood. You shall not act on the basis of omens or lucky hours.27You shall not round off the corner of your head, and you shall not destroy the edge of your beard.28You shall not make cuts in your flesh for a person [who died]. You shall not etch a tattoo on yourselves. I am the Lord.29You shall not defile your daughter by making her a harlot, lest the Land fall into harlotry and the land be filled with immorality.30You shall observe My Sabbaths and revere My Sanctuary. I am the Lord.31You shall not turn to [the sorcery of] Ov or Yid'oni; you shall not seek [these and thereby] defile yourselves through them. I am the Lord, your God.32You shall rise before a venerable person and you shall respect the elderly, and you shall fear your God. I am the Lord.

Tuesday

Ezekiel 36:25–30 (NLT):

25 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.

28 “And you will live in Israel, the land I gave your ancestors long ago. You will be my people, and I will be your God. 29 I will cleanse you of your filthy behavior. I will give you good crops of grain, and I will send no more famines on the land. 30 I will give you great harvests from your fruit trees and fields, and never again will the surrounding nations be able to scoff at your land for its famines.

Fourth Portion

Leviticus Chapter 19

33When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not taunt him.34The stranger who sojourns with you shall be as a native from among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. I am the Lord, your God.35You shall not commit a perversion of justice with measures, weights, or liquid measures.36You shall have true scales, true weights, a true ephah, and a true hin. I am the Lord, your God, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt.37You shall observe all My statutes and all My ordinances, and fulfill them. I am the Lord.

Wednesday

Romans 7:1–13 (NLT): No Longer Bound to the Law

Now, dear brothers and sisters—you who are familiar with the law—don’t you know that the law applies only while a person is living? 2 For example, when a woman marries, the law binds her to her husband as long as he is alive. But if he dies, the laws of marriage no longer apply to her. 3 So while her husband is alive, she would be committing adultery if she married another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law and does not commit adultery when she remarries.

4 So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the one who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God. 5 When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death. 6 But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.

God’s Law Reveals Our Sin

7 Well then, am I suggesting that the law of God is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was the law that showed me my sin. I would never have known that coveting is wrong if the law had not said, “You must not covet.” 8 But sin used this command to arouse all kinds of covetous desires within me! If there were no law, sin would not have that power. 9 At one time I lived without understanding the law. But when I learned the command not to covet, for instance, the power of sin came to life, 10 and I died. So I discovered that the law’s commands, which were supposed to bring life, brought spiritual death instead. 11 Sin took advantage of those commands and deceived me; it used the commands to kill me. 12 But still, the law itself is holy, and its commands are holy and right and good.

13 But how can that be? Did the law, which is good, cause my death? Of course not! Sin used what was good to bring about my condemnation to death. So we can see how terrible sin really is. It uses God’s good commands for its own evil purposes.

Fifth Portion

Leviticus Chapter 20

1And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying,2And to the children of Israel, you shall say: Any man of the children of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among Israel, who gives any of his offspring to Molech, shall surely be put to death; the people of the land shall pelt him with stones.3And I will set My attention upon that man, and I will cut him off from amidst his people, because he gave of his offspring to Molech in order to defile My holy ones and to profane My holy Name.4But if the people of the land ignore that man when he gives of his offspring to Molech, not putting him to death5I will set My attention upon that man, and upon his family, and I will cut him off, and all who stray after him to stray after Molech, from amidst their people.6And the person who turns to Ov or Yid'oni, to stray after them I will set My attention upon that person, and I will cut him off from amidst his people.7You shall sanctify yourselves and be holy, for I am the Lord, your God.

Thursday

Romans 7:14–25 (NLT): Struggling with Sin

14 So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. 15 I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. 16 But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. 17 So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

18 And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. 19 I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. 20 But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

21 I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. 22 I love God’s law with all my heart. 23 But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. 24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.

Sixth Portion

Leviticus Chapter 20

8And you shall observe My statutes and fulfill them. I am the Lord, Who sanctifies you.9For any man who curses his father or his mother shall be put to death; he has cursed his father or his mother; his blood is upon himself.10And a man who commits adultery with [another] man's wife, committing adultery with the wife of his fellow the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.11And a man who lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon themselves.12And a man who lies with his daughter in law both of them shall surely be put to death; they have committed a depravity; their blood is upon themselves.13And a man who lies with a male as one would with a woman both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon themselves.14And a man who takes a woman and her mother it is evil counsel. They shall burn him and them in fire, and there shall be no evil counsel in your midst.15And a man who lies with an animal, shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal.16And a woman who comes close to any animal so that it will mate with her you shall kill the woman and the animal; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon themselves.17And a man who takes his sister, whether his father's daughter or his mother's daughter, and he sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness it is a disgraceful act, and they shall be cut off before the eyes of the members of their people; he uncovered his sister's nakedness; he shall bear his sin.18And a man who lies with a woman who has a flow, and he uncovers her nakedness he has bared her fountain, and she has uncovered the fountain of her blood. Both of them shall be cut off from the midst of their people.19And you shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother's sister or your father's sister, for he would be baring his close relative; they shall bear their sin.20And a man who lies with his aunt he has uncovered his uncle's nakedness; they shall bear their transgression; they shall die childless.21And a man who takes his brother's wife it is a repulsive act; he has uncovered his brother's nakedness; they shall be childless.22And you shall observe all My statutes and all My ordinances, and fulfill them, then the Land, to which I am bringing you to dwell therein, will not vomit you out.

Friday

Romans 8:1–14 (NLT): Life in the Spirit

So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. 2 And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. 3 The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. 4 He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.

5 Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. 6 So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. 7 For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. 8 That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.

9 But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) 10 And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. 11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.

12 Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. 13 For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

Seventh Portion

Leviticus Chapter 20

23You shall not follow the practices of the nation that I am sending away from before you, for they committed all these [sins], and I was disgusted with them.24So I said to you, You shall possess their land, and I shall give it to you to possess it a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the Lord your God, Who has distinguished you from the peoples.25And you shall distinguish between clean animals and unclean ones, and between unclean birds and clean ones; thus you shall not make yourselves disgusting through [unclean] animals and birds and any [creature] which crawls on the earth, that I have distinguished for you to render unclean.26And you shall be holy to Me, for I, the Lord, am holy, and I have distinguished you from the peoples, to be Mine.27And a man or a woman who has [the sorcery of] Ov or Yid'oni, shall surely be put to death; they shall pelt them with stones; their blood is upon themselves.

Saturday

John 20:19–23 (NLT): Jesus Appears to His Disciples

19 That Sunday evening the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them! “Peace be with you,” he said. 20 As he spoke, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side. They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord! 21 Again he said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.” 22 Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Maftir Portion

Leviticus Chapter 20

25And you shall distinguish between clean animals and unclean ones, and between unclean birds and clean ones; thus you shall not make yourselves disgusting through [unclean] animals and birds and any [creature] which crawls on the earth, that I have distinguished for you to render unclean.26And you shall be holy to Me, for I, the Lord, am holy, and I have distinguished you from the peoples, to be Mine.27And a man or a woman who has [the sorcery of] Ov or Yid'oni, shall surely be put to death; they shall pelt them with stones; their blood is upon themselves.

Haftarah

Ezekiel Chapter 20

2Then came the word of the Lord to me, saying:3"Son of man, speak to the elders of Israel and say to them: So says the Lord God, Have you come to inquire of Me? As true as I live, I will not be inquired of by you! says the Lord God.4Will you contend with them? Will you contend, O son of man? Let them know the abominations of their fathers.5And you shall say to them: So says the Lord God, On the day I chose Israel, then I lifted up My hand to the seed of the house of Jacob, and made Myself known to them in the land of Egypt, when I lifted up My hand to them, saying: I am the Lord your God.6On that day I lifted up My hand to them to bring them out of the land of Egypt, to a land that I had sought out for them, flowing with milk and honey; it is the glory of all the lands.7And I said to them: Every man cast away the despicable idols from before his eyes, and pollute not yourselves with the idols of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.8But they rebelled against Me and would not consent to hearken to Me; they did not cast away, every man, the despicable idols from before their eyes, neither did they forsake the idols of Egypt; and I said to pour out My wrath over them, to give My anger full rein over them, in the midst of the land of Egypt.9But I wrought for the sake of My Name so that it should not be desecrated before the eyes of the nations in whose midst they were, before whose eyes I made Myself known to them, to bring them out of the land of Egypt.10And I brought them out of the land of Egypt, and I brought them into the wilderness.11And I gave them My statutes, and My ordinances I made known to them, which, if a man perform, he shall live through them.12Moreover, I gave them My Sabbaths to be for a sign between Me and them, to know that I, the Lord, make them holy.13But the house of Israel rebelled against Me in the wilderness; they walked not in My statutes, and they despised My ordinances, which, if a man keep, he will live through them, and My Sabbaths they desecrated exceedingly. Then I said to pour out My wrath upon them in the wilderness, to make an end to them.14And I wrought for the sake of My Name, so it should not be desecrated before the eyes of the nations before whose eyes I had brought them out.15But I also lifted up My hand to them in the wilderness, that I would not bring them into the land which I had given them, flowing with milk and honey; it is the glory of all lands.16Because they despised My ordinances, and in My statutes they did not walk, and My Sabbaths they desecrated- for their heart went constantly after their idols.17Nevertheless, My eye looked pityingly upon them, not to destroy them, and I did not make an end to them in the wilderness.18But I said to their children in the wilderness: 'In the statutes of your fathers do not walk and do not observe their ordinances, and do not defile yourselves with their idols.19I am the Lord your God: walk in My statutes, and keep My ordinances and fulfill them.20And keep My Sabbaths holy so that they be a sign between Me and you, that you may know that I am the Lord your God.'