Reading 1, Isaiah 43:16-21

16 Thus says Yahweh, who made a way through the sea, a path in the raging waters,

17 who led out chariot and horse together with an army of picked troops: they lay down never to rise again, they were snuffed out, put out like a wick.

18 No need to remember past events, no need to think about what was done before.

19 Look, I am doing something new, now it emerges; can you not see it? Yes, I am making a road in the desert and rivers in wastelands.

20 The wild animals will honour me, the jackals and the ostriches, for bestowing water in the desert and rivers on the wastelands for my people, my chosen one, to drink.

21 The people I have shaped for myself will broadcast my praises.

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6

1 [Song of Ascents] When Yahweh brought back Zion’s captives we lived in a dream;

2 then our mouths filled with laughter, and our lips with song. Then the nations kept saying, ‘What great deeds Yahweh has done for them!’

3 Yes, Yahweh did great deeds for us, and we were overjoyed.

4 Bring back, Yahweh, our people from captivity like torrents in the Negeb!

5 Those who sow in tears sing as they reap.

6 He went off, went off weeping, carrying the seed. He comes back, comes back singing, bringing in his sheaves.

READ ALSO

1 and Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

2 At daybreak he appeared in the Temple again; and as all the people came to him, he sat down and began to teach them.

3 The scribes and Pharisees brought a woman along who had been caught committing adultery; and making her stand there in the middle

4 they said to Jesus, ‘Master, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery,

5 and in the Law Moses has ordered us to stone women of this kind. What have you got to say?’

6 They asked him this as a test, looking for an accusation to use against him. But Jesus bent down and started writing on the ground with his finger.

7 As they persisted with their question, he straightened up and said, ‘Let the one among you who is guiltless be the first to throw a stone at her.’

8 Then he bent down and continued writing on the ground.

9 When they heard this they went away one by one, beginning with the eldest, until the last one had gone and Jesus was left alone with the woman, who remained in the middle.

10 Jesus again straightened up and said, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’

11 ‘No one, sir,’ she replied. ‘Neither do I condemn you,’ said Jesus. ‘Go away, and from this moment sin no more.’

 

Reading 2, Philippians 3:8-14

8 Yes, I will go further: because of the supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, I count everything else as loss. For him I have accepted the loss of all other things, and look on them all as filth if only I can gain Christ

9 and be given a place in him, with the uprightness I have gained not from the Law, but through faith in Christ, an uprightness from God, based on faith,

10 that I may come to know him and the power of his resurrection, and partake of his sufferings by being moulded to the pattern of his death,

11 striving towards the goal of resurrection from the dead.

12 Not that I have secured it already, nor yet reached my goal, but I am still pursuing it in the attempt to take hold of the prize for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

13 Brothers, I do not reckon myself as having taken hold of it; I can only say that forgetting all that lies behind me, and straining forward to what lies in front,

14 I am racing towards the finishing-point to win the prize of God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.