Today’s
Readings

Thus saith the Lord God: I myself will take of the marrow of the high cedar, and will set it: I will crop off a tender twig from the top of the branches thereof, and I will plant it on a mountain high and eminent.

On the high mountains of Israel will I plant it, and it shall shoot forth into branches, and shall bear fruit, and it shall become a great cedar: and all birds shall dwell under it, and every fowl shall make its nest under the shadow of the branches thereof.

And all the trees of the country shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree, and exalted the low tree: and have dried up the green tree, and have caused the dry tree to flourish. I the Lord have spoken and have done it.

It is good to give praise to the Lord: and to sing to thy name, O most High.

To shew forth thy mercy in the morning, and thy truth in the night:

The just shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow up like the cedar of Libanus.

They that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of the house of our God.

They shall still increase in a fruitful old age: and shall be well treated,

That they may shew, That the Lord our God is righteous, and there is no iniquity in him.

Therefore having always confidence, knowing that, while we are in the body, we are absent from the Lord.

(For we walk by faith, and not by sight.)

But we are confident, and have a good will to be absent rather from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

And therefore we labour, whether absent or present, to please him.

For we must all be manifested before the judgement seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper things of the body, according as he hath done, whether it be good or evil.

And he said: So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the earth,

And should sleep, and rise, night and day, and the seed should spring, and grow up whilst he knoweth not.

For the earth of itself bringeth forth fruit, first the blade, then the ear, afterwards the full corn in the ear.

And when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.

And he said: To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? or to what parable shall we compare it?

It is as a grain of mustard seed: which when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that are in the earth:

And when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of the air may dwell under the shadow thereof.

And with many such parables, he spoke to them the word, according as they were able to hear.

And without parable he did not speak unto them; but apart, he explained all things to his disciples.