Daily Readings - 09/12/2025

^40:1 ‘Console my people, console them’ says your God.

^40:2 ‘Speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call to her that her time of service is ended, that her sin is atoned for, that she has received from the hand of Yahweh double punishment for all her crimes.’

^40:3 A voice cries, ‘Prepare in the wilderness a way for Yahweh. Make a straight highway for our God across the desert.

^40:4 Let every valley be filled in, every mountain and hill be laid low, let every cliff become a plain, and the ridges a valley;

^40:5 then the glory of Yahweh shall be revealed and all mankind shall see it; for the mouth of Yahweh has spoken.’

^40:6 A voice commands: ‘Cry!’ and I answered, ‘What shall I cry?’ – ‘All flesh is grass and its beauty like the wild flower’s.

^40:7 The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of Yahweh blows on them. (The grass is without doubt the people.)

^40:8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God remains for ever.’

^40:9 Go up on a high mountain, joyful messenger to Zion. Shout with a loud voice, joyful messenger to Jerusalem. Shout without fear, say to the towns of Judah, ‘Here is your God’.

^40:10 Here is the Lord Yahweh coming with power, his arm subduing all things to him. The prize of his victory is with him, his trophies all go before him.

^40:11 He is like a shepherd feeding his flock, gathering lambs in his arms, holding them against his breast and leading to their rest the mother ewe.

^95:1 Come, let us praise Yahweh joyfully, acclaiming the Rock of our safety;

^95:2 let us come into his presence with thanksgiving, acclaiming him with music.

^95:3 For Yahweh is a great God, a greater King than all other gods;

^95:4 from depths of earth to mountain top everything comes under his rule;

^95:5 the sea belongs to him, he made it, so does the land, he shaped this too.

^95:6 Come in, let us bow, prostrate ourselves, and kneel in front of Yahweh our maker,

^95:7 for this is our God, and we are the people he pastures, the flock that he guides. If only you would listen to him today,

^95:8 ‘Do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,[*a]

^95:9 when your ancestors challenged me, tested me, although they had seen what I could do.

^95:10 ‘For forty years that generation repelled me, until I said: How unreliable these people who refuse to grasp my ways!

^95:11 And so, in anger, I swore that not one would reach the place of rest I had for them.’

^18:12 ‘Tell me. Suppose a man has a hundred sheep and one of them strays; will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hillside and go in search of the stray?

^18:13 I tell you solemnly, if he finds it, it gives him more joy than do the ninety-nine that did not stray at all.

^18:14 Similarly, it is never the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost.