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Today's Readings
Reading I
Nm 21:4-9
From Mount Hor the children of Israel set out on the Red Sea road,
to bypass the land of Edom. But with their patience worn out by the
journey, the people complained against God and Moses, “Why have you
brought us up from Egypt to die in this desert, where there is no
food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!” In
punishment the LORD sent among the people saraph serpents, which bit
the people so that many of them died. Then the people came to Moses
and said, “We have sinned in complaining against the LORD and you.
Pray the LORD to take the serpents away from us.” So Moses prayed
for the people, and the LORD said to Moses, “Make a saraph and mount
it on a pole, and whoever looks at it after being bitten will live.”
Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole,
and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the
bronze serpent, he lived.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 102:2-3, 16-18, 19-21
R. (2) O Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you. O
LORD, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you. Hide not your face
from me in the day of my distress. Incline your ear to me; in the
day when I call, answer me speedily. R. O Lord, hear my prayer,
and let my cry come to you. The nations shall revere your name,
O LORD, and all the kings of the earth your glory, When the LORD has
rebuilt Zion and appeared in his glory; When he has regarded the
prayer of the destitute, and not despised their prayer. R. O
Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you. Let this be
written for the generation to come, and let his future creatures
praise the LORD: “The LORD looked down from his holy height, from
heaven he beheld the earth, To hear the groaning of the prisoners,
to release those doomed to die.” R. O Lord, hear my prayer, and
let my cry come to you.
Gospel
Jn 8:21-30
Jesus said to the Pharisees: “I am going away and you will look for
me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come.”
So the Jews said, “He is not going to kill himself, is he, because
he said, ‘Where I am going you cannot come’?” He said to them, “You
belong to what is below, I belong to what is above. You belong to
this world, but I do not belong to this world. That is why I told
you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I
AM, you will die in your sins.” So they said to him, “Who are you?”
Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning. I have much
to say about you in condemnation. But the one who sent me is true,
and what I heard from him I tell the world.” They did not realize
that he was speaking to them of the Father. So Jesus said to them,
“When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM,
and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father
taught me. The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone,
because I always do what is pleasing to him.” Because he spoke this
way, many came to believe in him. |
