The scriptures read are Hosea 3-4, Psalm 99 and Matthew 1.
Hosea 3-4. God orders Hosea to get his wife back and love her again, the way the Lord does with his people.
God indicts his people of unfaithfulness as well as theft, murder and a lot of social sins. He indicts the priests and the prophets who fail to educate the people in what is right and what is wrong.
Oh, and it is interesting that God does not go after the women who become temple prostitutes in these fertility religions but the men who patronize them. Just like some police departments have decided to treat prostitutes as victims and go after the pimps who control and oppress them. Gee, God was way ahead of our advanced modern morality!
The prophet warns Judah not to follow Israel into this destructive behavior.
Psalm 99. This church choir does a bang-up job singing a familiar version of this psalm.
Matthew 1. It will be interesting to reread the gospels in the light of what we have read in the Old Testament.
For one thing, we know more about the people mentioned in this genealogy that we did the first time we read it. BTW I read that the difference between Matthew's and Luke's genealogies is that Matthew is sticking to the kings and their official successors (not every royal son becomes king) whereas Luke is giving the actual physical ancestors of Jesus. And the feminine form "of whom" in verse 16, indicates that Jesus comes from Mary, not Joseph. The New Bible Commentary sees the inclusion of the 4 women in the genealogy as not only unusual but given that the women are mostly not Jewish and even a bit scandalous, Matthew is probably indicating that it is not unheard of for God to choose a "social insignificant and unmarried" woman to be the mother of the Messiah.
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