Daily Reading for Friday, June 30th, 2023

Reading 1, Genesis 17:1, 9-10, 15-22

¹ When Abram was ninety-nine years old Yahweh appeared to him and said, 'I am El Shaddai. Live in my presence, be perfect,

⁹ God further said to Abraham, 'You for your part must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you, generation after generation.

¹⁰ This is my covenant which you must keep between myself and you, and your descendants after you: every one of your males must be circumcised.

¹⁵ Furthermore God said to Abraham, 'As regards your wife Sarai, you must not call her Sarai, but Sarah.

¹⁶ I shall bless her and moreover give you a son by her. I shall bless her and she will become nations: kings of peoples will issue from her.'

¹⁷ Abraham bowed to the ground, and he laughed, thinking to himself, 'Is a child to be born to a man one hundred years old, and will Sarah have a child at the age of ninety?'

¹⁸ Abraham said to God, 'May Ishmael live in your presence! That will be enough!'

¹⁹ But God replied, 'Yes, your wife Sarah will bear you a son whom you must name Isaac. And I shall maintain my covenant with him, a covenant in perpetuity, to be his God and the God of his descendants after him.

²⁰ For Ishmael too I grant you your request. I hereby bless him and will make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous. He will be the father of twelve princes, and I shall make him into a great nation.

²¹ But my covenant I shall maintain with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear you at this time next year.'

²² When he had finished speaking to Abraham, God went up from him.

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 128:1-2, 3, 4-5

¹ [Song of Ascents] How blessed are all who fear Yahweh, who walk in his ways!

² Your own labours will yield you a living, happy and prosperous will you be.

³ Your wife a fruitful vine in the inner places of your house. Your children round your table like shoots of an olive tree.

⁴ Such are the blessings that fall on those who fear Yahweh.

⁵ May Yahweh bless you from Zion! May you see Jerusalem prosper all the days of your life,