Reading 1, Deuteronomy 30:15-20
15 ‘Look, today I am offering you life and prosperity, death and disaster.
16 If you obey the commandments of Yahweh your God, which I am laying down for you today, if you love Yahweh your God and follow his ways, if you keep his commandments, his laws and his customs, you will live and grow numerous, and Yahweh your God will bless you in the country which you are about to enter and make your own.
17 But if your heart turns away, if you refuse to listen, if you let yourself be drawn into worshipping other gods and serving them,
18 I tell you today, you will most certainly perish; you will not live for long in the country which you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
19 Today, I call heaven and earth to witness against you: I am offering you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live,
20 in the love of Yahweh your God, obeying his voice, holding fast to him; for in this your life consists, and on this depends the length of time that you stay in the country which Yahweh swore to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that he would give them.’
- Billy Graham Daily Devotional 3 March 2022 – God Is the Life Giver
- Open Heaven Daily Devotional 3 March 2022 – Provision From The Lord’s Table
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 1:1-2, 3, 4, 6
1 How blessed is anyone who rejects the advice of the wicked and does not take a stand in the path that sinners tread, nor a seat in company with cynics,
2 but who delights in the law of Yahweh and murmurs his law day and night.
3 Such a one is like a tree planted near streams; it bears fruit in season and its leaves never wither, and every project succeeds.
4 How different the wicked, how different! Just like chaff blown around by the wind
6 For Yahweh watches over the path of the upright, but the path of the wicked is doomed.
Gospel, Luke 9:22-25
22 He said, ‘The Son of man is destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death, and to be raised up on the third day.’
23 Then, speaking to all, he said, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross every day and follow me.
24 Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, will save it.
25 What benefit is it to anyone to win the whole world and forfeit or lose his very self?
