Daily Reading for Sunday, October 23rd, 2011

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Reading 1, Ex 22:20-26

²⁰ 'You will not molest or oppress aliens, for you yourselves were once aliens in Egypt.

²¹ You will not ill-treat widows or orphans;

²² if you ill-treat them in any way and they make an appeal to me for help, I shall certainly hear their appeal,

²³ my anger will be roused and I shall put you to the sword; then your own wives will be widows and your own children orphans.

²⁴ 'If you lend money to any of my people, to anyone poor among you, you will not play the usurer with him: you will not demand interest from him.

²⁵ 'If you take someone's cloak in pledge, you will return it to him at sunset.

²⁶ It is all the covering he has; it is the cloak he wraps his body in; what else will he sleep in? If he appeals to me, I shall listen. At least with me he will find compassion!

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51

² Yahweh is my rock and my fortress, my deliverer is my God. I take refuge in him, my rock, my shield, my saving strength, my stronghold, my place of refuge.

³ I call to Yahweh who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my foes.

⁴ With Death's breakers closing in on me, Belial's torrents ready to swallow me,

⁴⁷ the God who gives me vengeance, and subjects whole peoples to me,

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Gospel, Mt 22:34-40

³⁴ But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees they got together

³⁵ and, to put him to the test, one of them put a further question,

³⁶ 'Master, which is the greatest commandment of the Law?'

³⁷ Jesus said to him, 'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

³⁸ This is the greatest and the first commandment.

³⁹ The second resembles it: You must love your neighbour as yourself.

⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the Prophets too.'

Reading 2, 1 Thes 1:5c-10

⁵ It all shows that God's judgement is just, so that you may be found worthy of the kingdom of God; it is for the sake of this that you are suffering now.

⁶ For God's justice will surely mean hardship being inflicted on those who are now inflicting hardship on you,

⁷ and for you who are now suffering hardship, relief with us, when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven with the angels of his power.

⁸ He will come amid flaming fire; he will impose a penalty on those who do not acknowledge God and refuse to accept the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

⁹ Their punishment is to be lost eternally, excluded from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his strength

¹⁰ on that day when he comes to be glorified among his holy ones and marvelled at by all who believe in him; and you are among those who believed our witness.

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