Daily Reading for Friday, July 2nd, 2010

Reading 1, Am 8:4-6, 9-12

⁴ Listen to this, you who crush the needy and reduce the oppressed to nothing,

⁵ you who say, 'When will New Moon be over so that we can sell our corn, and Sabbath, so that we can market our wheat? Then, we can make the bushel-measure smaller and the shekel-weight bigger, by fraudulently tampering with the scales.

⁶ We can buy up the weak for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals, and even get a price for the sweepings of the wheat.'

⁹ 'On that Day- declares the Lord Yahweh- I shall make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.

¹⁰ I shall turn your festivals into mourning and all your singing into lamentation; I shall make you all wear sacking round your waists and have all your heads shaved. I shall make it like the mourning for an only child, and it will end like the bitterest of days.

¹¹ 'The days are coming- declares the Lord Yahweh- when I shall send a famine on the country, not hunger for food, not thirst for water, but famine for hearing Yahweh's word.

¹² People will stagger from sea to sea, will wander from the north to the east, searching for Yahweh's word, but will not find it.

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 119:2, 10, 20, 30, 40, 131

² Blessed are those who observe his instructions, who seek him with all their hearts,

¹⁰ With all my heart I seek you, do not let me stray from your commandments.

²⁰ My heart is pining away with longing at all times for your judgements.

³⁰ I have chosen the way of constancy, I have moulded myself to your judgements.

⁴⁰ See how I yearn for your precepts; in your saving justice give me life.

¹³¹ I open wide my mouth, panting eagerly for your commandments.