Daily Readings - 22/02/2026

^2:7 Yahweh God fashioned man of dust from the soil. Then he breathed into his nostrils a breath of life, and thus man became a living being.

^2:8 Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden which is in the east, and there he put the man he had fashioned.

^2:9 Yahweh God caused to spring up from the soil every kind of tree, enticing to look at and good to eat, with the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the middle of the garden.

^3:1 The serpent was the most subtle of all the wild beasts that Yahweh God had made. It asked the woman, ‘Did God really say you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?’

^3:2 The woman answered the serpent, ‘We may eat he fruit of the trees in the garden.

^3:3 But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, “You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death”.’

^3:4 Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘No! You will not die!

^3:5 God knows in fact that on the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.’

^3:6 The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was desirable for the knowledge that it could give. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She gave some also to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.

^3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realised that they were naked. So they sewed fig-leaves together to make themselves loin-cloths.

^50:1 Yahweh, God of gods, speaks, he summons the earth. From east to west,

^50:2 from Zion, perfection of beauty, he shines.

^50:3 Let our God come, and be silent no more! Preceding him, a devouring fire, round him, a raging storm;

^50:4 he summons the heavens above and the earth, to his people’s trial:

^50:5 ‘Assemble my faithful before me who sealed my covenant by sacrifice!’

^50:6 Let the heavens proclaim his righteousness when God himself is judge! (Pause)

^50:8 ‘I am not finding fault with your sacrifices, those holocausts constantly before me;

^50:9 I do not claim one extra bull from your homes, nor one extra goat from your pens,

^50:10 ‘since all the forest animals are already mine, and the cattle on my mountains in their thousands;

^50:11 I know all the birds of the air, nothing moves in the field that does not belong to me.

^50:12 ‘If I were hungry, I should not tell you, since the world and all it holds is mine.

^50:13 Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink goats’ blood?

^50:14 ‘No, let thanksgiving be your sacrifice to God, fulfil the vows you make to the Most High;

^50:15 then you can invoke me in your troubles and I will rescue you, and you shall honour me.’

^50:16 But to the wicked man God says: ‘What business have you reciting my statutes, standing there mouthing my covenant,

^50:17 since you detest my discipline and thrust my words behind you?

^50:18 ‘You make friends with a thief as soon as you see one, you feel at home with adulterers,

^50:19 your mouth is given freely to evil and your tongue to inventing lies.

^50:20 ‘You sit there, slandering your own brother, you malign your own mother’s son.

^50:21 You do this, and expect me to say nothing?

^50:22 ‘You are leaving God out of account; take care! Or I will tear you to pieces where no one can rescue you!

^50:23 Whoever makes thanksgiving his sacrifice honours me; to the upright man I will show how God can save.’

^5:12 Well then, sin entered the world through one man, and through sin death, and thus death has spread through the whole human race because everyone has sinned.

^5:13 Sin existed in the world long before the Law was given. There was no law and so no one could be accused of the sin of ‘law-breaking’,

^5:14 yet death reigned over all from Adam to Moses, even though their sin, unlike that of Adam, was not a matter of breaking a law. Adam prefigured the One to come,

^5:15 but the gift itself considerably outweighed the fall. If it is certain that through one man’s fall so many died, it is even more certain that divine grace, coming through the one man, Jesus Christ, came to so many as an abundant free gift.

^5:16 The results of the gift also outweigh the results of one man’s sin: for after one single fall came judgement with a verdict of condemnation, now after many falls comes grace with its verdict of acquittal.

^5:17 If it is certain that death reigned over everyone as the consequence of one man’s fall, it is even more certain that one man, Jesus Christ, will cause everyone to reign in life who receives the free gift that he does not deserve, of being made righteous.

^5:18 Again, as one man’s fall brought condemnation on everyone, so the good act of one man brings everyone life and makes them justified.

^5:19 As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous.

^4:1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

^4:2 He fasted for forty days and forty nights, after which he was very hungry,

^4:3 and the tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to turn into loaves’.

^4:4 But he replied, ‘Scripture says: Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God’.[*a]

^4:5 The devil then took him to the holy city and made him stand on the parapet of the Temple.

^4:6 ‘If you are the Son of God’ he said ‘throw yourself down; for scripture says: He will put you in his angels’ charge, and they will support you on their hands in case you hurt your foot against a stone’.[*b]

^4:7 Jesus said to him, ‘Scripture also says: You must not put the Lord your God to the test’.[*c]

^4:8 Next, taking him to a very high mountain, the devil showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour.

^4:9 ‘I will give you all these’ he said, ‘if you fall at my feet and worship me.’

^4:10 Then Jesus replied, ‘Be off, Satan! For scripture says: You must worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone.'[*d]

^4:11 Then the devil left him, and angels appeared and looked after him.