Daily Readings - 13/03/2026

^14:2 Israel, come back to Yahweh your God; your iniquity was the cause of your downfall.

^14:3 Provide yourself with words and come back to Yahweh. Say to him, ‘Take all iniquity away so that we may have happiness again and offer you our words of praise.

^14:4 Assyria cannot save us, we will not ride horses any more[*a], or say, “Our God!” to what our own hands have made, for you are the one in whom orphans find compassion.

^14:5 -I will heal their disloyalty, I will love them with all my heart, for my anger has turned from them.

^14:6 I will fall like dew on Israel. He shall bloom like the lily, and thrust out roots like the poplar,

^14:7 his shoots will spread far; he will have the beauty of the olive and the fragrance of Lebanon.

^14:8 They will come back to live in my shade; they will grow corn that flourishes, they will cultivate vines as renowned as the wine of Helbon.

^14:9 What has Ephraim to do with idols any more when it is I who hear his prayer and care for him? I am like a cypress ever green, all your fruitfulness comes from me.

^14:10 Let the wise man understand these words. Let the intelligent man grasp their meaning. For the ways of Yahweh are straight, and virtuous men walk in them, but sinners stumble.

^81:1 Shout for joy to honour God our strength, shout to acclaim the God of Jacob!

^81:2 Start the music, sound the drum, the melodious lyre and the harp;

^81:3 sound the New Moon trumpet, at the full moon, on our feastday!

^81:4 This is a statute binding on Israel, an ordinance of the God of Jacob,

^81:5 this decree he imposed on Joseph when he went to war against Egypt. I can hear a voice I no longer recognise,

^81:6 ‘It was I who relieved your shoulder of the burden, your hands could drop the labourer’s basket;

^81:7 you called in your trouble, so I rescued you. ‘Hidden in the storm, I answered you, I tested you at the waters of Meribah. (pause)

^81:8 Listen, you are my people, let me warn you. Israel, if you would only listen to me!

^81:9 ‘Tolerate no foreign god, worship no alien god;

^81:10 I, Yahweh, am your God, I who brought you here from Egypt; you have only to open your mouth for me to fill it.

^81:11 ‘My people refused to listen to me, Israel refused to obey me,

^81:12 so I left them to their stubborn selves to do whatever they pleased.

^81:13 ‘If only my people would listen, if Israel would follow my ways,

^81:14 at one blow I would defeat their enemies and strike at all who attack them.

^81:15 ‘Then those who hate Yahweh would cringe, their doom being sealed for ever;

^81:16 while I would feed you on pure wheat and satisfy you with the wild rock honey.’

^12:28 One of the scribes who had listened to them debating and had observed how well Jesus had answered them, now came up and put a question to him, ‘Which is the first of all the commandments?’

^12:29 Jesus replied, ‘This is the first: Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one Lord,

^12:30 and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.[*c]

^12:31 The second is this: You must love your neighbour as yourself.[*d] There is no commandment greater than these.’

^12:32 The scribe said to him, ‘Well spoken, Master; what you have said is true: that he is one and there is no other.

^12:33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and strength, and to love your neighbour as yourself, this is far more important than any holocaust or sacrifice.’

^12:34 Jesus, seeing how wisely he had spoken, said, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God’. And after that no one dared to question him any more.