Psalm 146:5–9

⁵Blessèd is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
⁶who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
⁷who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
⁸the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
⁹The Lord watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

Old Testament Reading Numbers 14:26–45

²⁶And the Lord spoke to Moses and to Aaron, saying, ²⁷“How long shall this wicked congregation grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the people of Israel, which they grumble against me. ²⁸Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the Lord, what you have said in my hearing I will do to you: ²⁹your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness, and of all your number, listed in the census from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against me, ³⁰not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. ³¹But your little ones, who you said would become a prey, I will bring in, and they shall know the land that you have rejected. ³²But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. ³³And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness. ³⁴According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’ ³⁵I, the Lord, have spoken. Surely this will I do to all this wicked congregation who are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall come to a full end, and there they shall die.”

³⁶And the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land, who returned and made all the congregation grumble against him by bringing up a bad report about the land— ³⁷the men who brought up a bad report of the land—died by plague before the Lord. ³⁸Of those men who went to spy out the land, only Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh remained alive.

³⁹When Moses told these words to all the people of Israel, the people mourned greatly. ⁴⁰And they rose early in the morning and went up to the heights of the hill country, saying, “Here we are. We will go up to the place that the Lord has promised, for we have sinned.” ⁴¹But Moses said, “Why now are you transgressing the command of the Lord, when that will not succeed? ⁴²Do not go up, for the Lord is not among you, lest you be struck down before your enemies. ⁴³For there the Amalekites and the Canaanites are facing you, and you shall fall by the sword. Because you have turned back from following the Lord, the Lord will not be with you.” ⁴⁴But they presumed to go up to the heights of the hill country, although neither the ark of the covenant of the Lord nor Moses departed out of the camp. ⁴⁵Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who lived in that hill country came down and defeated them and pursued them, even to Hormah.

New Testament Reading Luke 18:35—19:10

³⁵As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. ³⁶And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. ³⁷They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” ³⁸And he cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” ³⁹And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” ⁴⁰And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him, ⁴¹“What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” ⁴²And Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.” ⁴³And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God.

¹He entered Jericho and was passing through. ²And there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. ³And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small of stature. ⁴So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. ⁵And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” ⁶So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. ⁷And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” ⁸And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” ⁹And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”