Reading 1, Isaiah 38:1-6, 21-22, 7-8

¹ About then, Hezekiah fell ill and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came and said to him, 'Yahweh says this, "Put your affairs in order, for you are going to die, you will not live." '

² Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and addressed this prayer to Yahweh,

³ 'Ah, Yahweh, remember, I beg you, that I have behaved faithfully and with sincerity of heart in your presence and done what you regard as right.' And Hezekiah shed many tears.

⁴ Then the word of Yahweh came to Isaiah,

⁵ 'Go and say to Hezekiah, "Yahweh, the God of your ancestor David, says this: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears. I shall cure you: in three days' time you will go up to the Temple of Yahweh. I shall add fifteen years to your life.

⁶ I shall save you and this city from the king of Assyria's clutches and defend this city for my sake and my servant David's sake." '

⁷ 'Here', Isaiah replied, 'is the sign from Yahweh that he will do what he has said.

⁸ Look, I shall make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the steps -- the steps to Ahaz's roof-room-go back ten steps.' And the sun went back the ten steps by which it had declined.

²¹ 'Bring a fig poultice,' Isaiah said, 'apply it to the ulcer and he will recover.'

²² Hezekiah said, 'What is the sign to tell me that I shall be going up to the Temple of Yahweh?'

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Responsorial Psalm, Isaiah 38:10, 11, 12, 16

¹⁰ I thought: In the noon of my life I am to depart. At the gates of Sheol I shall be held for the rest of my days.

¹¹ I thought: I shall never see Yahweh again in the land of the living, I shall never see again a single one of those who live on earth.

¹² My home has been pulled up, and thrown away like a shepherd's tent; like a weaver, I have rolled up my life, he has cut me from the loom. From dawn to dark, you have been making an end of me;

¹⁶ The Lord is over them; they live, and everything in them lives by his spirit. You will cure me. Restore me to life.

Gospel, Matthew 12:1-8

¹ At that time Jesus went through the cornfields one Sabbath day. His disciples were hungry and began to pick ears of corn and eat them.

² The Pharisees noticed it and said to him, 'Look, your disciples are doing something that is forbidden on the Sabbath.'

³ But he said to them, 'Have you not read what David did when he and his followers were hungry-

⁴ how he went into the house of God and they ate the loaves of the offering although neither he nor his followers were permitted to eat them, but only the priests?

⁵ Or again, have you not read in the Law that on the Sabbath day the Temple priests break the Sabbath without committing any fault?

⁶ Now here, I tell you, is something greater than the Temple.

⁷ And if you had understood the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the blameless.

⁸ For the Son of man is master of the Sabbath.'

May 2013

June 2013

The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.

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