5th Sunday of Luke

Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. ²⁸God has set some in the assembly: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracle workers, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, and various kinds of languages. ²⁹Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Are all miracle workers? ³⁰Do all have gifts of healings? Do all speak with various languages? Do all interpret? ³¹But earnestly desire the best gifts. Moreover, I show a most excellent way to you.

¹If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.

⁴Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, ⁵doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; ⁶doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; ⁷bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.

“Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day. ²⁰A certain beggar, named Lazarus, was taken to his gate, full of sores, ²¹and desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Yes, even the dogs came and licked his sores. ²²The beggar died, and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. ²³In Hades, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far off, and Lazarus at his bosom. ²⁴He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.’

²⁵“But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But here he is now comforted and you are in anguish. ²⁶Besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, that those who want to pass from here to you are not able, and that no one may cross over from there to us.’

²⁷“He said, ‘I ask you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house— ²⁸for I have five brothers—that he may testify to them, so they won’t also come into this place of torment.’

²⁹“But Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’

³⁰“He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’

³¹“He said to him, ‘If they don’t listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rises from the dead.’”