We had another lectionary blooper in today’s service. Nobody proofed the church bulletin for errors, and the OT reading was printed as Deuteronomy 25:1-11 instead of 26:1-11. And the liturgist came unprepared too since she didn’t spot the error, and she proceeded to read out loud in front of the congregation the wrong passage:
1 When men have a dispute, they are to take it to court and the judges will decide the case, acquitting the innocent and condemning the guilty.
2 If the guilty man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall make him lie down and have him flogged in his presence with the number of lashes his crime deserves,
3 but he must not give him more than forty lashes. If he is flogged more than that, your brother will be degraded in your eyes.
4 Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.
5 If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her.
6 The first son she bears shall carry on the name of the dead brother so that his name will not be blotted out from Israel.
7 However, if a man does not want to marry his brother's wife, she shall go to the elders at the town gate and say, "My husband's brother refuses to carry on his brother's name in Israel. He will not fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to me."
8 Then the elders of his town shall summon him and talk to him. If he persists in saying, "I do not want to marry her,"
9 his brother's widow shall go up to him in the presence of the elders, take off one of his sandals, spit in his face and say, "This is what is done to the man who will not build up his brother's family line."
10 That man's line shall be known in Israel as The Family of the Unsandaled.
11 If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to rescue her husband from his assailant, and she reaches out and seizes him by his private parts,
When I read it, it sounded so strange for a lectionary reading that I launched my mobile browser to see if it was mistaken, which it was. And, she didn’t read verse 12 and the congregation was left scratching their heads with the abrupt ending.
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