Daily Reading for Thursday, December 21st, 2023

Reading 1, Zephaniah 3:14-18

¹⁴ Shout for joy, daughter of Zion, Israel, shout aloud! Rejoice, exult with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem!

¹⁵ Yahweh has repealed your sentence; he has turned your enemy away. Yahweh is king among you, Israel, you have nothing more to fear.

¹⁶ When that Day comes, the message for Jerusalem will be: Zion, have no fear, do not let your hands fall limp.

¹⁷ Yahweh your God is there with you, the warrior-Saviour. He will rejoice over you with happy song, he will renew you by his love, he will dance with shouts of joy for you,

¹⁸ as on a day of festival. I have taken away your misfortune, no longer need you bear the disgrace of it.

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 33:2-3, 11-12, 20-21

¹ Shout for joy, you upright; praise comes well from the honest.

² Give thanks to Yahweh on the lyre, play for him on the ten-stringed lyre.

³ Sing to him a new song, make sweet music for your cry of victory.

⁴ The word of Yahweh is straightforward, all he does springs from his constancy.

⁵ He loves uprightness and justice; the faithful love of Yahweh fills the earth.

⁶ By the word of Yahweh the heavens were made, by the breath of his mouth all their array.

⁷ He collects the waters of the sea like a dam, he stores away the abyss in his treasure-house.

⁸ Let the whole earth fear Yahweh, let all who dwell in the world revere him;

⁹ for, the moment he spoke, it was so, no sooner had he commanded, than there it stood!

¹⁰ Yahweh thwarts the plans of nations, frustrates the counsels of peoples;

¹¹ but Yahweh's own plan stands firm for ever, his heart's counsel from age to age.

¹² How blessed the nation whose God is Yahweh, the people he has chosen as his heritage.

² Give thanks to Yahweh on the lyre, play for him on the ten-stringed lyre.

³ Sing to him a new song, make sweet music for your cry of victory.

²⁰ We are waiting for Yahweh; he is our help and our shield,

²¹ for in him our heart rejoices, in his holy name we trust.