WELCOMING
HOSEA 14:3 (CEV)
Our LORD, you show mercy to orphans.
EPHESIANS 2:19 (CEV)
You Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens with everyone else who belongs to the family of God.
SUMMARY SENTENCE
The Lord welcomes all -- even the most disenfranchised.
PRAYER
God of all, you call everyone a member of your family -- even me. Soften our hard edges; fill us with humility and love in order to welcome strangers and aliens among us. Let our prayer of thanksgiving today not be for our own prosperity, but for the honor of caring for all your children. Amen. (Daily Texts, Ground Up Grace edition)
TRANSLATIONS
ABP = Authorized Boydston Paraphrase — my own freestyle biblical adaptation — somewhere between paraphrase, commentary, and sermon
CEB = Common English Bible (©2011, the Common English Bible)
CEV = Contemporary English Version (©1995, American Bible Society)
MSG = The Message (©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson)
NIRV = New International Reader's Version (©1996, 1998, Biblica)
NIV = New International Version (©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, Biblica)
NLT = New Living Translation (©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, Tyndale House Foundation)
