Daily Reading for Friday, August 9th, 2024

Reading 1, Nahum 2:1, 3; 3:1-3, 6-7

¹ To Judah See on the mountains the feet of the herald! 'Peace!' he proclaims. Judah, celebrate your feasts, carry out your vows, for Belial will never pass through you again; he has been utterly destroyed.

³ (For Yahweh has restored the vine of Jacob, yes, the vine of Israel, although the plunderers had plundered them, although they had snapped off their vine-shoots!)

¹ Disaster to the city of blood, packed throughout with lies, stuffed with booty, where plundering has no end!

² The crack of the whip! The rumble of wheels! Galloping horse, jolting chariot,

³ charging cavalry, flashing swords, gleaming spears, a mass of wounded, hosts of dead, countless corpses; they stumble over corpses-

⁶ I shall pelt you with filth, I shall shame you and put you in the pillory.

⁷ Then all who look at you will shrink from you and say, 'Nineveh has been ruined!' Who will mourn for her? Where would I find people to comfort you?

Responsorial Psalm, Deuteronomy 32:35-36, 39, 41

³⁵ Vengeance is mine, I will pay them back, for the time when they make a false step. For the day of their ruin is close, doom is rushing towards them, for he will see to it that their power fails. that neither serf nor free man remains.

³⁶ (For Yahweh will see his people righted, he will take pity on his servants.)

³⁹ See now that I, I am he, and beside me there is no other god. It is I who deal death and life; when I have struck, it is I who heal (no one can rescue anyone from me).

⁴¹ When I have whetted my flashing sword, I shall enforce justice, I shall return vengeance to my foes, I shall take vengeance on my foes.