Third Sunday in Lent, Year C

¹ “Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. ² Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness. ³ Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. ⁴ Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples. ⁵ Behold, you shall call a nation that you don’t know; and a nation that didn’t know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he has glorified you.” ⁶ Seek the LORD while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. ⁷ Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, to our God, for he will freely pardon. ⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways,” says the LORD. ⁹ “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

¹ God, you are my God. I will earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh longs for you, in a dry and weary land, where there is no water. ² So I have seen you in the sanctuary, watching your power and your glory. ³ Because your loving kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise you. ⁴ So I will bless you while I live. I will lift up my hands in your name. ⁵ My soul shall be satisfied as with the richest food. My mouth shall praise you with joyful lips, ⁶ when I remember you on my bed, and think about you in the night watches. ⁷ For you have been my help. I will rejoice in the shadow of your wings. ⁸ My soul stays close to you. Your right hand holds me up.

¹ Now I would not have you ignorant, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; ² and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; ³ and all ate the same spiritual food; ⁴ and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. ⁵ However with most of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. ⁶ Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. ⁷ Don’t be idolaters, as some of them were. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” ⁸ Let’s not commit sexual immorality, as some of them committed, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell. ⁹ Let’s not test Christ, as some of them tested, and perished by the serpents. ¹⁰ Don’t grumble, as some of them also grumbled, and perished by the destroyer. ¹¹ Now all these things happened to them by way of example, and they were written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the ages have come. ¹² Therefore let him who thinks he stands be careful that he doesn’t fall. ¹³ No temptation has taken you except what is common to man. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation also make the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.