Responsive Reading: Isaiah 55 : 3, 6, 8-12

3.     Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

6.     Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:

8.     For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

9.     For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10.     For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

11.     So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

12.     For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

1. Psalm 139 : 23, 24

23     Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:

24     And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

2. II Chronicles 33 : 1, 2, 9-13, 15, 16

1     Manasseh was twelve years old when he began to reign, and he reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem:

2     But did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, like unto the abominations of the heathen, whom the Lord had cast out before the children of Israel.

9     So Manasseh made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to err, and to do worse than the heathen, whom the Lord had destroyed before the children of Israel.

10     And the Lord spake to Manasseh, and to his people: but they would not hearken.

11     Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon.

12     And when he was in affliction, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,

13     And prayed unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord he was God.

15     And he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the Lord, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the Lord, and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city.

16     And he repaired the altar of the Lord, and sacrificed thereon peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the Lord God of Israel.

3. Isaiah 54 : 11, 13, 14, 17

11     O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.

13     And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children.

14     In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near thee.

17     No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.

4. Matthew 11 : 1

1     And it came to pass, when Jesus had made an end of commanding his twelve disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities.

5. Matthew 12 : 22-25, 30-33, 35-37

22     Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw.

23     And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?

24     But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.

25     And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:

30     He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.

31     Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.

32     And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

33     Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.

35     A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.

36     But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.

37     For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

6. Romans 12 : 1, 2, 9, 10, 16, 21

1     I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

2     And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

9     Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.

10     Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;

16     Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.

21     Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

1. 472 : 24 (All)-30

All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not true, because they are not of God.

2. 490 : 3-11

Will-power is but a product of belief, and this belief commits depredations on harmony. Human will is an animal propensity, not a faculty of Soul. Hence it cannot govern man aright. Christian Science reveals Truth and Love as the motive-powers of man. Will — blind, stubborn, and headlong — cooperates with appetite and passion. From this cooperation arises its evil. From this also comes its powerlessness, since all power belongs to God, good.

3. 277 : 7 (As God)-12

As God Himself is good and is Spirit, goodness and spirituality must be immortal. Their opposites, evil and matter, are mortal error, and error has no creator. If goodness and spirituality are real, evil and materiality are unreal and cannot be the outcome of an infinite God, good.

4. 396 : 14-20 (to ,), 22-28 (to ;)

The refutation of the testimony of material sense is not a difficult task in view of the conceded falsity of this testimony. The refutation becomes arduous, not because the testimony of sin or disease is true, but solely on account of the tenacity of belief in its truth, due to the force of education and the overwhelming weight of opinions on the wrong side,

At the right time explain to the sick the power which their beliefs exercise over their bodies. Give them divine and wholesome understanding, with which to combat their erroneous sense, and so efface the images of sickness from mortal mind. Keep distinctly in thought that man is the offspring of God, not of man; that man is spiritual, not material;

5. 327 : 1-13 (to 2nd .), 22-24

Reform comes by understanding that there is no abiding pleasure in evil, and also by gaining an affection for good according to Science, which reveals the immortal fact that neither pleasure nor pain, appetite nor passion, can exist in or of matter, while divine Mind can and does destroy the false beliefs of pleasure, pain, or fear and all the sinful appetites of the human mind.

What a pitiful sight is malice, finding pleasure in revenge! Evil is sometimes a man's highest conception of right, until his grasp on good grows stronger. Then he loses pleasure in wickedness, and it becomes his torment. The way to escape the misery of sin is to cease sinning. There is no other way.

Fear of punishment never made man truly honest. Moral courage is requisite to meet the wrong and to proclaim the right.

6. 291 : 1-9

The suppositions that sin is pardoned while unforsaken, that happiness can be genuine in the midst of sin, that the so-called death of the body frees from sin, and that God's pardon is aught but the destruction of sin, — these are grave mistakes. We know that all will be changed "in the twinkling of an eye," when the last trump shall sound; but this last call of wisdom cannot come till mortals have already yielded to each lesser call in the growth of Christian character.

7. 4 : 3-9

What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds. To keep the commandments of our Master and follow his example, is our proper debt to him and the only worthy evidence of our gratitude for all that he has done.

8. 6 : 3 (Divine)-7

Divine Love corrects and governs man. Men may pardon, but this divine Principle alone reforms the sinner. God is not separate from the wisdom He bestows. The talents He gives we must improve.

9. 5 : 3-11, 29-32

Sorrow for wrong-doing is but one step towards reform and the very easiest step. The next and great step required by wisdom is the test of our sincerity, — namely, reformation. To this end we are placed under the stress of circumstances. Temptation bids us repeat the offence, and woe comes in return for what is done. So it will ever be, till we learn that there is no discount in the law of justice and that we must pay "the uttermost farthing."

An apostle says that the Son of God [Christ] came to "destroy the works of the devil." We should follow our divine Exemplar, and seek the destruction of all evil works, error and disease included.

10. 103 : 6-17

The destruction of the claims of mortal mind through Science, by which man can escape from sin and mortality, blesses the whole human family. As in the beginning, however, this liberation does not scientifically show itself in a knowledge of both good and evil, for the latter is unreal.

On the other hand, Mind-science is wholly separate from any half-way impertinent knowledge, because Mind-science is of God and demonstrates the divine Principle, working out the purposes of good only. The maximum of good is the infinite God and His idea, the All-in-all. Evil is a suppositional lie.

11. 458 : 32-8

Christianity causes men to turn naturally from matter to Spirit, as the flower turns from darkness to light. Man then appropriates those things which "eye hath not seen nor ear heard." Paul and John had a clear apprehension that, as mortal man achieves no worldly honors except by sacrifice, so he must gain heavenly riches by forsaking all worldliness. Then he will have nothing in common with the worldling's affections, motives, and aims.

12. 22 : 11-12

"Work out your own salvation," is the demand of Life and Love, for to this end God worketh with you.