4th Sunday of Luke

So then, he has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires.

¹⁹You will say then to me, “Why does he still find fault? For who withstands his will?” ²⁰But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?” ²¹Or hasn’t the potter a right over the clay, from the same lump to make one part a vessel for honor, and another for dishonor? ²²What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, ²³and that he might make known the riches of his glory on vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory— ²⁴us, whom he also called, not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? ²⁵As he says also in Hosea, “I will call them ‘my people,’ which were not my people; and her ‘beloved,’ who was not beloved.” ²⁶“It will be that in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”

²⁷Isaiah cries concerning Israel, “If the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, it is the remnant who will be saved; ²⁸for he will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness, because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth.”

²⁹As Isaiah has said before, “Unless the Lord of Armies had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom, and would have been made like Gomorrah.”

³⁰What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, who didn’t follow after righteousness, attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith; ³¹but Israel, following after a law of righteousness, didn’t arrive at the law of righteousness. ³²Why? Because they didn’t seek it by faith, but as it were by works of the law. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, ³³even as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and a rock of offense; and no one who believes in him will be disappointed.”

“The farmer went out to sow his seed. As he sowed, some fell along the road, and it was trampled under foot, and the birds of the sky devoured it. ⁶Some seed fell on the rock, and as soon as it grew, it withered away, because it had no moisture. ⁷Some fell amid the thorns, and the thorns grew with it and choked it. ⁸Some fell into the good ground and grew and produced one hundred times as much fruit.” As he said these things, he called out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

⁹Then his disciples asked him, “What does this parable mean?”

¹⁰He said, “To you it is given to know the mysteries of God’s Kingdom, but to the rest it is given in parables, that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’

¹¹“Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. ¹²Those along the road are those who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, that they may not believe and be saved. ¹³Those on the rock are they who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; but these have no root. They believe for a while, then fall away in time of temptation. ¹⁴What fell among the thorns, these are those who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures of life; and they bring no fruit to maturity. ¹⁵Those in the good ground, these are those who with an honest and good heart, having heard the word, hold it tightly, and produce fruit with perseverance.