Thursday after Ash Wednesday

15Behold, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and evil. 16For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes, and his ordinances, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you go in to possess it. 17But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away and worship other gods, and serve them, 18I declare to you today that you will surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land where you pass over the Jordan to go in to possess it. 19I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants, 20to love the LORD your God, to obey his voice, and to cling to him; for he is your life, and the length of your days, that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

1Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stand on the path of sinners,

nor sit in the seat of scoffers;

2but his delight is in the LORD’s law.

On his law he meditates day and night.

3He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water,

that produces its fruit in its season,

whose leaf also does not wither.

Whatever he does shall prosper.

4The wicked are not so,

but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

…

6For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked shall perish.

22saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.” 23He said to all, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. 24For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake will save it. 25For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits his own self?