Responsive Reading: Hebrews 12 : 6-8, 11-13

6.     For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

7.     If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?

8.     But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.

11.     Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.

12.     Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees;

13.     And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed.

1. Micah 6 : 8

8     He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

2. Psalm 1 : 1-6

1     Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

2     But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

3     And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

4     The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.

5     Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

6     For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

3. I Kings 16 : 29 (to :), 30-33

29     And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel:

30     And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him.

31     And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Zidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshipped him.

32     And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria.

33     And Ahab made a grove; and Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.

4. I Kings 17 : 1

1     And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.

5. I Kings 21 : 17, 18 (to :), 20-22, 27-29 (to :)

17     And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,

18     Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, which is in Samaria:

20     And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.

21     Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel,

22     And will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger, and made Israel to sin.

27     And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.

28     And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,

29     Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days:

6. Psalm 2 : 1-5, 10, 11

1     Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

2     The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying,

3     Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

4     He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.

5     Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.

10     Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.

11     Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

7. Romans 7 : 18-20, 22-25 (to 1st .)

18     For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

19     For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.

20     Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.

22     For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:

23     But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

24     O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

25     I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

8. I Samuel 16 : 7 (for the)

…for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.

9. Psalm 34 : 18-22

18     The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.

19     Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.

20     He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken.

21     Evil shall slay the wicked: and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.

22     The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.

10. Psalm 94 : 12

12     Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law;

1. 35 : 30-1

The design of Love is to reform the sinner. If the sinner's punishment here has been insufficient to reform him, the good man's heaven would be a hell to the sinner.

2. 36 : 4-6, 7-9

Divine Science reveals the necessity of sufficient suffering, either before or after death, to quench the love of sin. … Escape from punishment is not in accordance with God's government, since justice is the handmaid of mercy.

3. 104 : 29-2

Our courts recognize evidence to prove the motive as well as the commission of a crime. Is it not clear that the human mind must move the body to a wicked act? Is not mortal mind the murderer? The hands, without mortal mind to direct them, could not commit a murder.

4. 105 : 13-15

Mortal mind, not matter, is the criminal in every case; and human law rightly estimates crime, and courts reasonably pass sentence, according to the motive.

5. 542 : 1-13

The belief of life in matter sins at every step. It incurs divine displeasure, and it would kill Jesus that it might be rid of troublesome Truth. Material beliefs would slay the spiritual idea whenever and wherever it appears. Though error hides behind a lie and excuses guilt, error cannot forever be concealed. Truth, through her eternal laws, unveils error. Truth causes sin to betray itself, and sets upon error the mark of the beast. Even the disposition to excuse guilt or to conceal it is punished. The avoidance of justice and the denial of truth tend to perpetuate sin, invoke crime, jeopardize self-control, and mock divine mercy.

6. 105 : 22-27

Whoever uses his developed mental powers like an escaped felon to commit fresh atrocities as opportunity occurs is never safe. God will arrest him. Divine justice will manacle him. His sins will be millstones about his neck, weighing him down to the depths of ignominy and death.

7. 266 : 20-21, 26-27

The sinner makes his own hell by doing evil, and the saint his own heaven by doing right.

The evil beliefs which originate in mortals are hell.

8. 196 : 6-10

Better the suffering which awakens mortal mind from its fleshly dream, than the false pleasures which tend to perpetuate this dream. Sin alone brings death, for sin is the only element of destruction.

9. 447 : 20-27

Expose and denounce the claims of evil and disease in all their forms, but realize no reality in them. A sinner is not reformed merely by assuring him that he cannot be a sinner because there is no sin. To put down the claim of sin, you must detect it, remove the mask, point out the illusion, and thus get the victory over sin and so prove its unreality.

10. 327 : 1-13 (to 2nd .), 22-3

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. But how shall we reform the man who has more animal than moral courage, and who has not the true idea of good? Through human consciousness, convince the mortal of his mistake in seeking material means for gaining happiness. Reason is the most active human faculty. Let that inform the sentiments and awaken the man's dormant sense of moral obligation, and by degrees he will learn the nothingness of the pleasures of human sense and the grandeur and bliss of a spiritual sense, which silences the material or corporeal. Then he not only will be saved, but is saved.

11. 253 : 18-21, 25-31

If you believe in and practise wrong knowingly, you can at once change your course and do right. Matter can make no opposition to right endeavors against sin or sickness, for matter is inert, mindless.

Do not believe in any supposed necessity for sin, disease, or death, knowing (as you ought to know) that God never requires obedience to a so-called material law, for no such law exists. The belief in sin and death is destroyed by the law of God, which is the law of Life instead of death, of harmony instead of discord, of Spirit instead of the flesh.

12. 542 : 19-24

Let Truth uncover and destroy error in God's own way, and let human justice pattern the divine. Sin will receive its full penalty, both for what it is and for what it does. Justice marks the sinner, and teaches mortals not to remove the waymarks of God.

13. 323 : 6-12

Through the wholesome chastisements of Love, we are helped onward in the march towards righteousness, peace, and purity, which are the landmarks of Science. Beholding the infinite tasks of truth, we pause, — wait on God. Then we push onward, until boundless thought walks enraptured, and conception unconfined is winged to reach the divine glory.