FIRST
READING: Wisdom 2: 1, 12 - 22
1
For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, "Short and
sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a man comes to his
end, and no one has been known to return from Hades.
12
"Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is
inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins
against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training.
13
He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of
the Lord.
14
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
15
the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life
is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange.
16
We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as
unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts
that God is his father.
17
Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at
the end of his life;
18
for if the righteous man is God's son, he will help him, and will
deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
19
Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how
gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance.
20
Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he
says, he will be protected."
21
Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness
blinded them,
22
and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hope for the
wages of holiness, nor discern the prize for blameless souls.
PSALM: Psalms 34: 17 - 21, 23
17
When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears, and delivers them
out of all their troubles.
18
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in
spirit.
19
Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the LORD delivers him
out of them all.
20
He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.
21
Evil shall slay the wicked; and those who hate the righteous will be
condemned.
GOSPEL: John 7: 1 - 2, 10, 25 - 30
1
After this Jesus went about in Galilee; he would not go about in
Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him.
2
Now the Jews' feast of Tabernacles was at hand.
10
But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went
up, not publicly but in private.
25
Some of the people of Jerusalem therefore said, "Is not this the
man whom they seek to kill?
26
And here he is, speaking openly, and they say nothing to him! Can it
be that the authorities really know that this is the Christ?
27
Yet we know where this man comes from; and when the Christ appears,
no one will know where he comes from."
28
So Jesus proclaimed, as he taught in the temple, "You know me,
and you know where I come from? But I have not come of my own accord;
he who sent me is true, and him you do not know.
29
I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me."
30
So they sought to arrest him; but no one laid hands on him, because
his hour had not yet come.
