Daily Reading for Saturday, September 28th, 2024

Reading 1, Ecclesiastes 11:9-12:8

⁹ Young man, enjoy yourself while you are young, make the most of the days of your youth, follow the prompting and desire of heart and eye, but remember, God will call you to account for everything.

¹⁰ Rid your heart of indignation, keep your body clear of suffering, though youth and the age of black hair are both futile.

¹ Remember your Creator while you are still young, before the bad days come, before the years come which, you will say, give you no pleasure;

² before the sun and the light grow dim and the moon and stars, before the clouds return after the rain;

³ the time when your watchmen become shaky, when strong men are bent double, when the women, one by one, quit grinding, and, as they look out of the window, find their sight growing dim.

⁴ When the street-door is kept shut, when the sound of grinding fades away, when the first cry of a bird wakes you up, when all the singing has stopped;

⁵ when going uphill is an ordeal and you are frightened at every step you take- yet the almond tree is in flower and the grasshopper is weighed down and the caper-bush loses its tang; while you are on the way to your everlasting home and the mourners are assembling in the street;

⁶ before the silver thread snaps, or the golden bowl is cracked, or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, or the pulley broken at the well-head:

⁷ the dust returns to the earth from which it came, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

⁸ Sheer futility, Qoheleth says, everything is futile.

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17

³ You bring human beings to the dust, by saying, 'Return, children of Adam.'

⁴ A thousand years are to you like a yesterday which has passed, like a watch of the night.

⁵ You flood them with sleep -- in the morning they will be like growing grass:

⁶ in the morning it is blossoming and growing, by evening it is withered and dry.

¹² Teach us to count up the days that are ours, and we shall come to the heart of wisdom.

¹³ Come back, Yahweh! How long must we wait? Take pity on your servants.

¹⁴ Each morning fill us with your faithful love, we shall sing and be happy all our days;

¹⁷ May the sweetness of the Lord be upon us, to confirm the work we have done!

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