Friday of the 5th Week of Lent

For I have heard the defaming of many: "Terror on every side! Denounce, and we will denounce him!" Say all my familiar friends, Those who watch for my fall. "Perhaps he will be persuaded, And we will prevail against him, And we will take our revenge on him." But the Lord is with me as an awesome mighty one. Therefore my persecutors will stumble, And they won't prevail. They will be utterly disappointed Because they have not dealt wisely, Even with an everlasting dishonor which will never be forgotten. But the Lord of Armies, who tests the righteous, Who sees the heart and the mind, Let me see your vengeance on them, For I have revealed my cause to you. Sing to the Lord! Praise the Lord, For he has delivered the soul of the needy from the hand of evildoers.

The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer; My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower. I call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; And I am saved from my enemies.

I call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised; And I am saved from my enemies. The cords of death surrounded me. The floods of ungodliness made me afraid.

The cords of Sheol were around me. The snares of death came on me. In my distress I called on the Lord, And cried to my God. He heard my voice out of his temple. My cry before him came into his ears.

Then the earth shook and trembled. The foundations also of the mountains quaked and were shaken, Because he was angry.

Therefore the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, "I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of those works do you stone me?"

The Jews answered him, "We don't stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God."

Jesus answered them, "Isn't it written in your law, 'I said, you are gods'? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture can't be broken), Do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, 'You blaspheme,' because I said, 'I am the Son of God'? If I don't do the works of my Father, don't believe me. But if I do them, though you don't believe me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father."

They sought again to seize him, and he went out of their hand. He went away again beyond the Jordan into the place where John was baptizing at first, and he stayed there. Many came to him. They said, "John indeed did no sign, but everything that John said about this man is true." Many believed in him there.