Responsive Reading: Isaiah 61 : 10, 11; Jeremiah 32 : 18, 19

10.     I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.

11.     For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations.

18.     Thou shewest lovingkindness unto thousands, and recompensest the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them: the Great, the Mighty God, the Lord of hosts, is his name,

19.     Great in counsel, and mighty in work: for thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men: to give every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

1. Genesis 1 : 1, 3, 4, 10, 12, 14 (to ;), 16, 18, 21, 24-26 (to :), 27, 30, 31 (to 1st .)

1     In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

3     And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4     And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

10     And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

12     And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

14     And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night;

16     And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

18     And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

21     And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

24     And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25     And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26     And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:

27     So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

30     And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31     And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

2. Isaiah 11 : 1, 10

1     And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots:

10     And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious.

3. Luke 4 : 1 (And Jesus) only, 17 (found), 18

1     And Jesus

17     …found the place where it was written,

18     The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

4. Matthew 4 : 23, 24

23     And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

24     And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them.

5. Matthew 9 : 18-25

18     While he spake these things unto them, behold, there came a certain ruler, and worshipped him, saying, My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live.

19     And Jesus arose, and followed him, and so did his disciples.

20     And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment:

21     For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole.

22     But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.

23     And when Jesus came into the ruler’s house, and saw the minstrels and the people making a noise,

24     He said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn.

25     But when the people were put forth, he went in, and took her by the hand, and the maid arose.

6. II Corinthians 4 : 6, 8, 9, 16-18

6     For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

8     We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

9     Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

16     For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

17     For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;

18     While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

7. Matthew 5 : 48

48     Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

1. 85 : 30-32

The great Teacher knew both cause and effect, knew that truth communicates itself but never imparts error.

2. 518 : 24-6

Genesis i. 31. And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

The divine Principle, or Spirit, comprehends and expresses all, and all must therefore be as perfect as the divine Principle is perfect. Nothing is new to Spirit. Nothing can be novel to eternal Mind, the author of all things, who from all eternity knoweth His own ideas. Deity was satisfied with His work. How could He be otherwise, since the spiritual creation was the outgrowth, the emanation, of His infinite self-containment and immortal wisdom?

3. 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.

4. 286 : 21-26

God's thoughts are perfect and eternal, are substance and Life. Material and temporal thoughts are human, involving error, and since God, Spirit, is the only cause, they lack a divine cause. The temporal and material are not then creations of Spirit. They are but counterfeits of the spiritual and eternal.

5. 239 : 23-32

Mortal mind is the acknowledged seat of human motives. It forms material concepts and produces every discordant action of the body. If action proceeds from the divine Mind, action is harmonious. If it comes from erring mortal mind, it is discordant and ends in sin, sickness, death. Those two opposite sources never mingle in fount or stream. The perfect Mind sends forth perfection, for God is Mind. Imperfect mortal mind sends forth its own resemblances, of which the wise man said, "All is vanity."

6. 243 : 25-18

Truth has no consciousness of error. Love has no sense of hatred. Life has no partnership with death. Truth, Life, and Love are a law of annihilation to everything unlike themselves, because they declare nothing except God.

Sickness, sin, and death are not the fruits of Life. They are inharmonies which Truth destroys. Perfection does not animate imperfection. Inasmuch as God is good and the fount of all being, He does not produce moral or physical deformity; therefore such deformity is not real, but is illusion, the mirage of error. Divine Science reveals these grand facts. On their basis Jesus demonstrated Life, never fearing nor obeying error in any form.

If we were to derive all our conceptions of man from what is seen between the cradle and the grave, happiness and goodness would have no abiding-place in man, and the worms would rob him of the flesh; but Paul writes: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."

Man undergoing birth, maturity, and decay is like the beasts and vegetables, — subject to laws of decay. If man were dust in his earliest stage of existence, we might admit the hypothesis that he returns eventually to his primitive condition; but man was never more nor less than man.

7. 275 : 10-19

To grasp the reality and order of being in its Science, you must begin by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all that really is. Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, combine as one, — and are the Scriptural names for God. All substance, intelligence, wisdom, being, immortality, cause, and effect belong to God. These are His attributes, the eternal manifestations of the infinite divine Principle, Love. No wisdom is wise but His wisdom; no truth is true, no love is lovely, no life is Life but the divine; no good is, but the good God bestows.

8. 205 : 7-12

When will the error of believing that there is life in matter, and that sin, sickness, and death are creations of God, be unmasked? When will it be understood that matter has neither intelligence, life, nor sensation, and that the opposite belief is the prolific source of all suffering?

9. 207 : 20-26

There is but one primal cause. Therefore there can be no effect from any other cause, and there can be no reality in aught which does not proceed from this great and only cause. Sin, sickness, disease, and death belong not to the Science of being. They are the errors, which presuppose the absence of Truth, Life, or Love.

10. 200 : 16-19

The great truth in the Science of being, that the real man was, is, and ever shall be perfect, is incontrovertible; for if man is the image, reflection, of God, he is neither inverted nor subverted, but upright and Godlike.

11. 276 : 17-24

If God is admitted to be the only Mind and Life, there ceases to be any opportunity for sin and death. When we learn in Science how to be perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect, thought is turned into new and healthy channels, — towards the contemplation of things immortal and away from materiality to the Principle of the universe, including harmonious man.

12. 476 : 32-5

Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.

13. 205 : 12-13

God created all through Mind, and made all perfect and eternal.