Daily Reading for Monday, July 31st, 2023

Reading 1, Exodus 32:15-24, 30-34

¹⁵ Moses turned and came down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, tablets inscribed on both sides, inscribed on the front and on the back.

¹⁶ The tablets were the work of God, and the writing on them was God's writing, engraved on the tablets.

¹⁷ When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, 'There is the sound of battle in the camp!'

¹⁸ But he replied: No song of victory is this sound, no lament for defeat this sound; but answering choruses I hear!

¹⁹ And there, as he approached the camp, he saw the calf and the groups dancing. Moses blazed with anger. He threw down the tablets he was holding, shattering them at the foot of the mountain.

²⁰ He seized the calf they had made and burned it, grinding it into powder which he scattered on the water, and made the Israelites drink it.

²¹ Moses then said to Aaron, 'What have these people done to you for you to have brought so great a sin on them?'

²² Aaron replied, 'My lord should not be so angry. You yourself know what a bad state these people are in!

²³ They said to me, "Make us a god to go at our head; for that Moses, the man who brought us here from Egypt -- we do not know what has become of him."

²⁴ I then said to them, "Anyone with gold, strip it off!" They gave it to me. I threw it into the fire and out came this calf!'

³⁰ On the following day Moses said to the people, 'You have committed a great sin. But now I shall go up to Yahweh: perhaps I can secure expiation for your sin.'

³¹ Moses then went back to Yahweh and said, 'Oh, this people has committed a great sin by making themselves a god of gold.

³² And yet, if it pleased you to forgive their sin. . .! If not, please blot me out of the book you have written!'

³³ Yahweh said to Moses, 'Those who have sinned against me are the ones I shall blot out of my book.

³⁴ So now go and lead the people to the place I promised to you. My angel will indeed go at your head but, on the day of punishment, I shall punish them for their sin.'

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 106:19-20, 21-22, 23

¹⁹ At Horeb they made a calf, bowed low before cast metal;

²⁰ they exchanged their glory for the image of a grass-eating bull.

²¹ They forgot the God who was saving them, who had done great deeds in Egypt,

²² such wonders in the land of Ham, such awesome deeds at the Sea of Reeds.

²³ He thought of putting an end to them, had not Moses, his chosen one, taken a stand in the breach and confronted him, to turn his anger away from destroying them.