Daily Reading for Monday, August 7th, 2023

Reading 1, Numbers 11:4-15

⁴ The rabble who had joined the people were feeling the pangs of hunger, and the Israelites began to weep again. 'Who will give us meat to eat?' they said.

⁵ 'Think of the fish we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic!

⁶ But now we are withering away; there is nothing wherever we look except this manna!'

⁷ The manna was like coriander seed and had the appearance of bdellium.

⁸ The people went round gathering it, and ground it in a mill or crushed it with a pestle; it was then cooked in a pot and made into pancakes. It tasted like cake made with oil.

⁹ When the dew fell on the camp at night-time, the manna fell with it.

¹⁰ Moses heard the people weeping, each family at the door of its tent. Yahweh's anger was greatly aroused; Moses too found it disgraceful,

¹¹ and he said to Yahweh: 'Why do you treat your servant so badly? In what respect have I failed to win your favour, for you to lay the burden of all these people on me?

¹² Was it I who conceived all these people, was I their father, for you to say to me, "Carry them in your arms, like a foster-father carrying an unweaned child, to the country which I swore to give their fathers"?

¹³ Where am I to find meat to give all these people, pestering me with their tears and saying, "Give us meat to eat"?

¹⁴ I cannot carry all these people on my own; the weight is too much for me.

¹⁵ If this is how you mean to treat me, please kill me outright! If only I could win your favour and be spared the sight of my misery!'

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 81:12-13, 14-15, 16-17

¹² So I left them to their stubborn selves, to follow their own devices.

¹³ 'If only my people would listen to me, if only Israel would walk in my ways,

¹⁴ at one stroke I would subdue their enemies, turn my hand against their opponents.

¹⁵ 'Those who hate Yahweh would woo his favour, though their doom was sealed for ever,

¹⁶ while I would feed him on pure wheat, would give you your fill of honey from the rock.'