Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Year A
Narrator: Today’s reading is from the Prophet Micah, chapter 6, beginning with verse 1.
Micah places us in a court room drama.
First the judge speaks,
ordering the complainant to rise,
and introducing the case.
Then God brings charges against Israel,
God’s own people.
Then Micah responds on behalf of Israel.
Let us go to court!
Judge: Rise!
Plead your case before the mountains.
And let the hills hear your voice.
Hear, you mountains,
the controversy of the Lord,
and you enduring foundations of the earth.
For the Lord has a controversy with his people.
And Go will contend with Israel.
God: O my people, what have I done to you?
In what have I wearied you?
Answer me!
For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,
and redeemed you from the house of slavery.
And I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
O my people,
Remember now
what King Ba-lak of Mo-ab devised,
what Ba-laam son of Be-or answered him.
Remember what happened
from Shee-teem to Gil-gal,
that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.
Narrator: So the prophet Micah speaks
on behalf of the people of Israel.
Micah: With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before God with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I sacrifice, kill, my firstborn
for my transgression?
the fruit of my body
for the sin of my soul?”
(long pause)
Judge: God has told you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
But to do justice,
and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Narrator: Here ends the reading.
May God bless our hearing with understanding.
Download this drama as a Word document
Adapted from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.
Photo of United Kingdom Supreme Court, London
