Daily Readings - 07/12/2026

^35:1 Let the wilderness and the dry-lands exult, let the wasteland rejoice and bloom,

^35:2 let it bring forth flowers like the jonquil, let it rejoice and sing for joy. The glory of Lebanon is bestowed on it, the splendour of Carmel and Sharon; they shall see the glory of Yahweh, the splendour of our God.

^35:3 Strengthen all weary hands, steady all trembling knees

^35:4 and say to all faint hearts, ‘Courage! Do not be afraid. ‘Look, your God is coming, vengeance is coming, the retribution of God; he is coming to save you.’

^35:5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed,

^35:6 then the lame shall leap like a deer and the tongues of the dumb sing for joy; for water gushes in the desert, streams in the wasteland,

^35:7 the scorched earth becomes a lake, the parched land springs of water. The lairs where the jackals used to live become thickets of reed and papyrus…

^35:8 And through it will run a highway undefiled which shall be called the Sacred Way; the unclean may not travel by it, nor fools stray along it.

^35:9 No lion will be there nor any fierce beast roam about it, but the redeemed will walk there,

^35:10 for those Yahweh has ransomed shall return. They will come to Zion shouting for joy, everlasting joy on their faces; joy and gladness will go with them and sorrow and lament be ended.

^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!

^5:17 Now he was teaching one day, and among the audience there were Pharisees and doctors of the Law who had come from every village in Galilee, from Judaea and from Jerusalem. And the Power of the Lord was behind his works of healing.

^5:18 Then some men appeared, carrying on a bed a paralysed man whom they were trying to bring in and lay down in front of him.

^5:19 But as the crowd made it impossible to find a way of getting him in, they went up on to the flat roof and lowered him and his stretcher down through the tiles into the middle of the gathering, in front of Jesus.

^5:20 Seeing their faith he said, ‘My friend, your sins are forgiven you’.

^5:21 The scribes and the Pharisees began to think this over. ‘Who is this man talking blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’

^5:22 But Jesus, aware of their thoughts, made them this reply, ‘What are these thoughts you have in your hearts?

^5:23 Which of these is easier: to say, “Your sins are forgiven you” or to say, “Get up and walk”?

^5:24 But to prove to you that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,’-he said to the paralysed man-‘I order you: get up, and pick up your stretcher and go home.’

^5:25 And immediately before their very eyes he got up, picked up what he had been lying on and went home praising God.

^5:26 They were all astounded and praised God, and were filled with awe, saying, ‘We have seen strange things today’.

^3:9 But Yahweh God called to the man. ‘Where are you?’ he asked.

^3:10 ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden;’ he replied ‘I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.’

^3:11 ‘Who told you that you were naked?’ he asked ‘Have you been eating of the tree I forbade you to eat?’

^3:12 The man replied, ‘It was the woman you put with me; she gave me the fruit, and I ate it’.

^3:13 Then Yahweh God asked the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman replied, ‘The serpent tempted me and I ate’.

^3:14 Then Yahweh God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, Be accursed beyond all cattle, all wild beasts. You shall crawl on your belly and eat dust every day of your life.

^3:15 I will make you enemies of each other: you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring. It will crush your head and you will strike its heel’.

^3:20 The man named his wife ‘Eve’ because she was the mother of all those who live[*a].

^97:1 Yahweh is king! Let earth rejoice, the many isles be glad!

^97:2 Cloud and Darkness surround him, Righteousness and Justice support his throne.

^97:3 A fire precedes him as he goes, devouring all enemies around him;

^97:4 his lightning lights up the world, earth observes and quakes.

^97:5 The mountains melt like wax at the coming of the Master of the world;

^97:6 the heavens proclaim his righteousness, all nations see his glory.

^97:7 Shame on those who worship images, who take pride in their idols: bow down as he passes, all you gods!

^97:8 Zion hears and rejoices, the daughters of Judah exult at the rulings you utter, Yahweh.

^97:9 For you are Yahweh Most High over the world, far transcending all other gods.

^97:10 Yahweh loves those who repudiate evil, he guards the souls of the devout, rescuing them from the clutches of the wicked.

^97:11 Light dawns for the virtuous, and joy, for upright hearts.

^97:12 Rejoice in Yahweh, you virtuous, remember his holiness, and praise him!

^1:3 Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ.

^1:4 Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence,

^1:5 determining that we should become his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ for his own kind purposes,

^1:6 to make us praise the glory of his grace, his free gift to us in the Beloved,

^1:11 And it is in him that we were claimed as God’s own, chosen from the beginning, under the predetermined plan of the one who guides all things as he decides by his own will;

^1:12 chosen to be, for his greater glory, the people who would put their hopes in Christ before he came.

^1:26 In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth,

^1:27 to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.

^1:28 He went in and said to her, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’

^1:29 She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean,

^1:30 but the angel said to her, ‘Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favour.

^1:31 Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus.

^1:32 He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David;

^1:33 he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.’

^1:34 Mary said to the angel, ‘But how can this come about, since I am a virgin?'[*g]

^1:35 ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you’ the angel answered ‘and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God.

^1:36 Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month,

^1:37 for nothing is impossible to God'[*h]

^1:38 ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’ And the angel left her.