Sunday between 18 and 24 February
(if before Ash Wednesday)
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C)
First Reading - 1 Samuel 26.7-13,22-24
A reading from the first book of Samuel. That night, David went, with his nephew, to the place where Saul and his army had set up camp. They found Saul, asleep, within the camp, with his spear, stuck in the ground, beside him, and his chief military officer, and his soldiers, sleeping around him. David’s nephew said to David, ‘God has given your enemy into your hands. Let me pin him to the ground, with one stroke of his own spear. I will not need to strike him twice.’ But David said to his nephew, ‘Do not kill him, for you would bear the guilt of raising your hand against the Lord’s anointed. Let it be the Lord who strikes him down, when his day comes to die; or let him go into battle, and perish there. Let us take his spear, and his water jar, and go.’ And no one saw it, or knew of it; and no one awoke, for the Lord had made a deep sleep fall upon them. The following morning, David stood on top of a hill, on the other side of the valley, and across that great distance, David called out to Saul, ‘Here is your spear, O king! Let one of the young men come over and retrieve it! The Lord gave you into my hand today, but I would not raise my hand against the Lord’s anointed. The Lord rewards the righteous and the faithful. And as I valued your life today, so may the Lord value my life, and deliver me from all danger and distress.’ This is the word of the Lord.Second Reading - 1 Corinthians 15.35-37a,42-44,49
A reading from the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians. Some ask, ‘How will the dead be raised, and what kind of body will they have?’ Consider a seed, from a plant: first it must die; then it is planted in the ground, and it comes to life again.What you sow in the ground is not
the plant
that the seed will become.
What you sow in the ground
is only the dry seed.
And this is how it is
with the resurrection of the dead.
What is sown is mortal, but what is raised
will live for ever.
Sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory;
sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
sown a physical body,
it is raised a spiritual body.
We have lived
in the image of Adam, who came
from the earth, from the dust;
we shall rise
in the image of Christ, who comes
from heaven.
This is the word of the Lord.