Daily Readings - 29/12/2025

^2:3 We can be sure that we know God only by keeping his commandments.

^2:4 Anyone who says, ‘I know him’, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, refusing to admit the truth.

^2:5 But when anyone does obey what he has said, God’s love comes to perfection in him. We can be sure that we are in God

^2:6 only when the one who claims to be living in him is living the same kind of life as Christ lived.

^2:7 My dear people, this is not a new commandment that I am writing to tell you, but an old commandment that you were given from the beginning, the original commandment which was the message brought to you.

^2:8 Yet in another way, what I am writing to you, and what is being carried out in your lives as it was in his, is a new commandment; because the night is over and the real light is already shining.

^2:9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the dark.

^2:10 But anyone who loves his brother is living in the light and need not be afraid of stumbling;

^2:11 unlike the man who hates his brother and is in the darkness, not knowing where he is going, because it is too dark to see.

^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.’

^2:22 And when the day came for them to be purified[*d] as laid down by the Law of Moses, they took him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord-

^2:23 observing what stands written in the Law of the Lord: Every first-born male must be consecrated to the Lord[*e]-

^2:24 and also to offer in sacrifice, in accordance with what is said in the Law of the Lord, a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons[*f]

^2:25 Now in Jerusalem there was a man named Simeon. He was an upright and devout man; he looked forward to Israel’s comforting and the Holy Spirit rested on him.

^2:26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death until he had set eyes on the Christ of the Lord[*g]

^2:27 Prompted by the Spirit he came to the Temple and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the Law required,

^2:28 he took him into his arms and blessed God; and he said:

^2:29 ‘Now, Master, you can let your servant go in peace, just as you promised;

^2:30 because my eyes have seen the salvation

^2:31 which you have prepared for all the nations to see,

^2:32 a light to enlighten the pagans and the glory of your people Israel’.

^2:33 As the child’s father and mother stood there wondering at the things that were being said about him,

^2:34 Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, ‘You see this child: he is destined for the fall and for the rising of many in Israel, destined to be a sign that is rejected-

^2:35 and a sword will pierce your own soul too-so that the secret thoughts of many may be laid bare’.