Daily Reading for Thursday, February 12th, 2026

Reading 1, Kings 11:4-13

⁴ The messengers came to Gibeah of Saul, and reported this to the people, and all the people wept aloud.

⁵ Now Saul was just then coming in from the fields behind his oxen, and he said, 'What is wrong? Why are the people weeping?' They explained to him what the men of Jabesh had said.

⁶ And the spirit of Yahweh seized on Saul when he heard these words, and he fell into a fury.

⁷ He took a yoke of oxen, cut them into pieces and sent these by messengers throughout the territory of Israel with these words, 'Anyone who will not march with Saul will have the same done to his oxen!' At this, a panic from Yahweh swept on the people and they marched out as one man.

⁸ Saul inspected them at Bezek; there were three hundred thousand of Israel and thirty thousand of Judah.

⁹ Then he said to the messengers who had come, 'This is what you are to say to the people of Jabesh in Gilead, "Tomorrow, by the time that the sun is hot, help will reach you." ' The messengers went and reported this to the people of Jabesh who were overjoyed;

¹⁰ they said to Nahash, 'Tomorrow we shall come out to you and you can do whatever you like to us.'

¹¹ The next day, Saul disposed the army in three contingents, which burst into the middle of the camp during the dawn watch and slaughtered the Ammonites until high noon. The survivors were so scattered that no two of them were left together.

¹² The people then said to Samuel, 'Who said, "Must we have Saul reigning over us?" Hand the men over, for us to put them to death.'

¹³ 'No one must be put to death today,' Saul said, 'for today Yahweh has intervened to rescue Israel.'

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 106:3-4, 35-36, 37, 40

³ How blessed are those who keep to what is just, whose conduct is always upright!

⁴ Remember me, Yahweh, in your love for your people. Come near to me with your saving power,

³⁵ but intermarried with them, and adopted their ways.

³⁶ They worshipped those nations' false gods, till they found themselves entrapped,

³⁷ and sacrificed their own sons and their daughters to demons.

⁴⁰ Yahweh's anger blazed out at his people, his own heritage filled him with disgust.