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| "The Pharisees and the Saduccees Come to Tempt Jesus" -- by James Tissot |
Wednesday
of the First Week in Lent
FIRST
READING: Jonah
3:1-10
1
And the word of the Lord came to Jonas the second time, saying:
2
Arise, and go to Ninive the great city: and preach in it the
preaching that I bid thee.
3
And Jonas arose, and went to Ninive, according to the word of the
Lord: now Ninive was a great city of three days' journey.
4
And Jonas began to enter into the city one day's journey: and he
cried, and said: Yet forty days, and Ninive shall be destroyed.
5
And the men of Ninive believed in God: and they proclaimed a fast,
and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least.
6
And the word came to the king of Ninive; and he rose up out of his
throne, and cast away his robe from him, and was clothed with
sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7
And he caused it to be proclaimed and published in Ninive from the
mouth of the king and of his princes, saying: Let neither men nor
beasts, oxen nor sheep, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink
water.
8
And let men and beasts be covered with sackcloth, and cry to the Lord
with all their strength, and let them turn every one from his evil
way, and from the iniquity that is in their hands.
9
Who can tell if God will turn, and forgive: and will turn away from
his fierce anger, and we shall not perish?
10
And God saw their works, that they were turned from their evil way:
and God had mercy with regard to the evil which he had said that he
would do to them, and he did it not.
PSALM:
Psalms 51:3-4,
12-13, 18-19
3
Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy. And according
to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my iniquity.
4
Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
12
Create a clean heart in me, O God: and renew a right spirit within my
bowels.
13
Cast me not away from thy face; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
18
For if thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would indeed have given it:
with burnt offerings thou wilt not be delighted.
19
A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite and humbled
heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
GOSPEL:
Luke 11:29-32
29
And the multitudes running together, he began to say: This generation
is a wicked generation: it asketh a sign, and a sign shall not be
given it, but the sign of Jonas the prophet.
30
For as Jonas was a sign to the Ninivites; so shall the Son of man
also be to this generation.
31
The queen of the south shall rise in the judgment with the men of
this generation, and shall condemn them: because she came from the
ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold more than
Solomon here.
32
The men of Ninive shall rise in the judgment with this generation,
and shall condemn it; because they did penance at the preaching of
Jonas; and behold more than Jonas here.
