Daily Readings - 19/03/2026

^88:1 Yahweh my God, I call for help all day, I weep to you all night;

^88:2 may my prayer reach you hear my cries for help;

^88:3 for my soul is all troubled, my life is on the brink of Sheol;

^88:4 I am numbered among those who go down to the Pit, a man bereft of strength:

^88:5 a man alone, down among the dead, among the slaughtered in their graves, among those you have forgotten, those deprived of your protecting hand.

^88:6 You have plunged me to the bottom of the Pit, to its darkest, deepest place,

^88:7 weighted down by your anger, drowned beneath your waves. (pause)

^88:8 You have turned my friends against me and made me repulsive to them; in prison and unable to escape, my eyes are worn out with suffering.

^88:9 Yahweh, I invoke you all day, I stretch out my hands to you:

^88:10 are your marvels meant for the dead, can ghosts rise up to praise you?

^88:11 Who talks of your love in the grave, of your faithfulness in the place of perdition?

^88:12 Do they hear about your marvels in the dark, about your righteousness in the land of oblivion? (pause)

^88:13 But I am here, calling for your help, praying to you every morning:

^88:14 why do you reject me? Why do you hide your face from me?

^88:15 Wretched, slowly dying since my youth, I bore your terrors – now I am exhausted;

^88:16 your anger overwhelmed me, you destroyed me with your terrors

^88:17 which, like a flood, were round me, all day long, all together closing in on me.

^88:18 You have turned my friends and neighbours against me, now darkness is my one companion left.

^4:13 The promise of inheriting the world was not made to Abraham and his descendants on account of any law but on account of the righteousness which consists in faith.

^4:16 That is why what fulfils the promise depends on faith, so that it may be a free gift and be available to all of Abraham’s descendants, not only those who belong to the Law but also those who belong to the faith of Abraham who is the father of all of us.

^4:17 As scripture says: I have made you the ancestor of many nations[*c] Abraham is our father in the eyes of God, in whom he put his faith, and who brings the dead to life and calls into being what does not exist.

^4:18 Though it seemed Abraham’s hope could not be fulfilled, he hoped and he believed, and through doing so he did become the father of many nations exactly as he had been promised: Your descendants will be as many as the stars.[*d]

^4:22 This is the faith that was ‘considered as justifying him’.

^1:16 and Jacob was the father of Joseph the husband of Mary; of her was born Jesus who is called Christ.

^1:18 This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph;[*b] but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.

^1:19 Her husband Joseph; being a man of honour and wanting to spare her publicity, decided to divorce her informally.

^1:20 He had made up his mind to do this when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit.

^1:21 She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save[*c] his people from their sins.’

^1:24 When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home

^2:41 Every year his parents used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover.

^2:42 When he was twelve years old, they went up for the feast as usual.

^2:43 When they were on their way home after the feast, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem without his parents knowing it.

^2:44 They assumed he was with the caravan, and it was only after a day’s journey that they went to look for him among their relations and acquaintances.

^2:45 When they failed to find him they went back to Jerusalem looking for him everywhere.

^2:46 Three days later, they found him in the Temple, sitting among the doctors, listening to them, and asking them questions;

^2:47 and all those who heard him were astounded at his intelligence and his replies.

^2:48 They were overcome when they saw him, and his mother said to him, ‘My child, why have, you done this to us? See how worried your father and I have been, looking for

^2:49 ‘Why were you looking for me?’ he replied ‘Did you not know that I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’

^2:50 But they did not understand what he meant.

^2:51 He then went down with them and came to Nazareth and lived under their authority. His mother stored up all these things in her heart.