Daily Readings - 22/08/2026

^84:1 How I love your palace, Yahweh Sabaoth! How my soul yearns and pines for Yahweh’s courts!

^84:2 My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.

^84:3 The sparrow has found its home at last, the swallow a nest for its young, your altars, Yahweh Sabaoth, my king and my God.

^84:4 Happy those who live in your house and can praise you all day long;

^84:5 and happy the pilgrims inspired by you with courage to make the Ascents! (pause)

^84:6 As they go through the Valley of the Weeper,[*a] they make it a place of springs, clothed in blessings by early rains.

^84:7 Thence they make their way from height to height, soon to be seen before God on Zion.

^84:8 Yahweh Sabaoth, hear my prayer, listen, God of Jacob;

^84:9 God our shield, now look on us and be kind to your anointed. (pause)

^84:10 A single day in your courts is worth more than a thousand elsewhere; merely to stand on the steps of God’s[*b] house is better than living with the wicked.

^84:11 For God is battlement and shield, conferring grace and glory; Yahweh withholds nothing good from those who walk without blame.

^84:12 Yahweh Sabaoth, happy the man who puts his trust in you!

^23:1 Then addressing the people and his disciples Jesus said,

^23:2 ‘The scribes and the Pharisees occupy the chair of Moses.

^23:3 You must therefore do what they tell you and listen to what they say; but do not be guided by what they do: since they do not practise what they preach.

^23:4 They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but will they lift a finger to move them? Not they!

^23:5 Everything they do is done to attract attention, like wearing broader phylacteries and longer tassels[*a],

^23:6 like wanting to take the place of honour at banquets and the front seats in the synagogues,

^23:7 being greeted obsequiously in the market squares and having people call them Rabbi.

^23:8 ‘You, however, must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi, since you have only one master, and you are all brothers.

^23:9 You must call no one on earth your father, since you have only one Father, and he is in heaven.

^23:10 Nor must you allow yourselves to be called teachers, for you have only one Teacher, the Christ.

^23:11 The greatest among you must be your servant.

^23:12 Anyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and anyone who humbles himself will exalted.

^22:19 I dismiss you from your office, I remove you from your post,

^22:20 and the same day I call on my servant Eliakim son of Hilkiah.

^22:21 I invest him with your robe, gird him with your sash, entrust him with your authority; and he shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the House of Judah.

^22:22 I place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; should he open, no one shall close, should he close, no one shall open.

^22:23 I drive him like a peg into a firm place; he will become a throne of glory for his father’s house.

^137:1 Beside the streams of Babylon we sat and wept at the memory of Zion,

^137:2 leaving our harps hanging on the poplars there.

^137:3 For we had been asked to sing to our captors, to entertain those who had carried us off: ‘Sing’ they said ‘some hymns of Zion’.

^137:4 How could we sing one of Yahweh’s hymns in a pagan country?

^137:5 Jerusalem, if I forget you, may my right hand wither!

^137:6 May I never speak again, if I forget you! If I do not count Jerusalem the greatest of my joys!

^137:7 Yahweh, remember what the Sons of Edom did on the day of Jerusalem,[*a] how they said, ‘Down with her! Raze her to the ground!’

^137:8 Destructive Daughter of Babel, a blessing on the man who treats you as you have treated us,

^137:9 a blessing on him who takes and dashes your babies against the rock!

^11:33 How rich are the depths of God – how deep his wisdom and knowledge – and how impossible to penetrate his motives or understand his methods!

^11:34 Who could ever know the mind of the Lord? Who could ever be his counsellor?

^11:35 Who could ever give him anything or lend him anything?[*h]

^11:36 All that exists comes from him; all is by him and for him. To him be glory for ever! Amen.

^16:13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’

^16:14 And they said, ‘Some say he is John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets’.

^16:15 ‘But you,’ he said ‘who do you say I am?’

^16:16 Then Simon Peter spoke up, ‘You are the Christ,’ he said ‘the Son of the living God’.

^16:17 Jesus replied, ‘Simon son of Jonah, you are a happy man! Because it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you but my Father in heaven.

^16:18 So I now say to you: You are Peter[*b] and on this rock I will build my Church. And the gates of the underworld[*c] can never hold out against it.

^16:19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven: whatever you bind on earth shall be considered bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be considered loosed in heaven.'[*d]

^16:20 Then he gave the disciples strict orders not to tell anyone that he was the Christ.