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Psalm 25:4-7
Show me your ways, LORD, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Remember, LORD, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you, LORD, are good.

Exodus 8:16-19
Then the Lord said to Moses, \u201cTell Aaron, \u2018Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the ground,\u2019 and throughout the land of Egypt the dust will become gnats.\u201d They did this, and when Aaron stretched out his hand with the staff and struck the dust of the ground, gnats came on people and animals. All the dust throughout the land of Egypt became gnats. But when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not. Since the gnats were on people and animals everywhere, the magicians said to Pharaoh, \u201cThis is the finger of God.\u201d But Pharaoh\u2019s heart was hard and he would not listen, just as the Lord had said.

Hebrews 11:32-40
And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated\u2014the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground. \xa0These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

John 11:41-46, 49-53
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, \u201cFather, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.\u201d When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, \u201cLazarus, come out!\u201d The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, \u201cTake off the grave clothes and let him go.\u201d Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

\u2026Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, \u201cYou know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.\u201d He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

Prayer
Show us your ways, O Lord: your ways of mercy and love, forgiveness, goodness, and resurrection life. \xa0But show us our ways too: our tendency to respond to your goodness by hardening our hearts like Pharoah or the religious leaders. \xa0Remember not the sins of our hard hearts, instead, transform our hearts to be responsive to you in faith, like that great cloud of witnesses that have gone before us. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen.

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