April 4, 2014

Reading

The Book of Wisdom   2: 1, 12-22

2:1	For they have said, reasoning with themselves incorrectly: “Our lifetime is brief and tedious, and there is no relief within the limits of man, and no one is acknowledged to have returned from the dead.
2:12	Therefore, let us encircle the just, because he is useless to us, and he is against our works, and he reproaches us with our legal offenses, and makes known to us the sins of our way of life.
2:13	He promises that he has the knowledge of God and he calls himself the son of God.
2:14	He was made among us to expose our very thoughts.
2:15	He is grievous for us even to behold, for his life is unlike other men’s lives, and immutable are his ways.
2:16	It is as if we are considered by him to be insignificant, and he abstains from our ways as from filth; he prefers the newly justified, and he glories that he has God for his father.
2:17	Let us see, then, if his words are true, and let us test what will happen to him, and then we will know what his end will be.
2:18	For if he is the true son of God, he will receive him and deliver him from the hands of his adversaries.
2:19	Let us examine him with insult and torture, that we may know his reverence and try his patience.
2:20	Let us condemn him to a most shameful death, for, according to his own words, God will care for him.”
2:21	These things they thought, and they were mistaken, for their own malice blinded them.
2:22	And they were ignorant of the mysteries of God; they neither hoped for the reward of justice, nor judged the value of holy souls.

Gospel

The Holy Gospel According to John   7: 1-2, 10, 25-30

7:1	Then, after these things, Jesus was walking in Galilee. For he was not willing to walk in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him.
7:2	Now the feast day of the Jews, the Feast of Tabernacles, was near.
7:10	But after his brothers went up, then he also went up to the feast day, not openly, but as if in secret.
7:25	Therefore, some of those from Jerusalem said: “Is he not the one whom they are seeking to kill?
7:26	And behold, he is speaking openly, and they say nothing to him. Could the leaders have decided that it is true this one is the Christ?
7:27	But we know him and where he is from. And when the Christ has arrived, no one will know where he is from.”
7:28	Therefore, Jesus cried out in the temple, teaching and saying: “You know me, and you also know where I am from. And I have not arrived of myself, but he who sent me is true, and him you do not know.
7:29	I know him. For I am from him, and he has sent me.”
7:30	Therefore, they were seeking to apprehend him, and yet no one laid hands on him, because his hour had not yet come.