October 8, 2023 The Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost

<p> <strong>Entrance Hymn #518 <em>Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation </em>Sequence Hymn #552 <em>Fight the Good Fight With All Thy Might </em>Offertory Anthem <em>Dona Nobis Pacem (Bach, arr. Alt house) </em>Communion Hymn #458 <em>My Song Is Love Unknown </em>Post-Communion Hymn #448 <em>O Love, How Deep, How Broad, How High </em></strong></p><p><strong>THE COLLECT OF THE DAY </strong></p><p>Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. <em>Amen. </em></p><p><strong>FIRST READING <em>Isaiah 5:1-7 </em></strong>A Reading from the Prophet Isaiah. Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard. What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes? And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down. I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry! <em>Reader </em>The Word of