Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C

¹ In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple. ² Above him stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With two he covered his face. With two he covered his feet. With two he flew. ³ One called to another, and said, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of Armies! The whole earth is full of his glory!” ⁴ The foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. ⁵ Then I said, “Woe is me! For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Armies!” ⁶ Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. ⁷ He touched my mouth with it, and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin forgiven.” ⁸ I heard the Lord’s voice, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am. Send me!” ⁹ He said, “Go, and tell this people, ‘You hear indeed, but don’t understand. You see indeed, but don’t perceive.’ ¹⁰ Make the heart of this people fat. Make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and turn again, and be healed.” ¹¹ Then I said, “Lord, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are waste without inhabitant, houses without man, the land becomes utterly waste, ¹² and the LORD has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many within the land. ¹³ If there is a tenth left in it, that also will in turn be consumed, as a terebinth, and as an oak, whose stump remains when they are cut down; so the holy seed is its stock.”

¹ I will give you thanks with my whole heart. Before the gods, I will sing praises to you. ² I will bow down toward your holy temple, and give thanks to your Name for your loving kindness and for your truth; for you have exalted your Name and your Word above all. ³ In the day that I called, you answered me. You encouraged me with strength in my soul. ⁴ All the kings of the earth will give you thanks, O LORD, for they have heard the words of your mouth. ⁵ Yes, they will sing of the ways of the LORD, for the LORD’s glory is great! ⁶ For though the LORD is high, yet he looks after the lowly; but he knows the proud from afar. ⁷ Though I walk in the middle of trouble, you will revive me. You will stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies. Your right hand will save me. ⁸ The LORD will fulfill that which concerns me. Your loving kindness, O LORD, endures forever. Don’t forsake the works of your own hands.

¹ Now I declare to you, brothers, the Good News which I preached to you, which also you received, in which you also stand, ² by which also you are saved, if you hold firmly the word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. ³ For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, ⁴ that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, ⁵ and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶ Then he appeared to over five hundred brothers at once, most of whom remain until now, but some have also fallen asleep. ⁷ Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, ⁸ and last of all, as to the child born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also. ⁹ For I am the least of the apostles, who is not worthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the assembly of God. ¹⁰ But by the grace of God I am what I am. His grace which was given to me was not futile, but I worked more than all of them; yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. ¹¹ Whether then it is I or they, so we preach, and so you believed.