August 8, 2013, First Reading

Wisdom 9:13-18

¹³ ‘What human being indeed can know the intentions of God? And who can comprehend the will of the Lord?

¹⁴ For the reasoning of mortals is inadequate, our attitudes of mind unstable;

¹⁵ for a perishable body presses down the soul, and this tent of clay weighs down the mindwith its many cares.

¹⁶ It is hard enough for us to work out what is on earth, laborious to know what lies within our reach; who, then, can discover what is in the heavens?

¹⁷ And who could ever have known your will, had you not given Wisdom and sent your holySpirit from above?

¹⁸ Thus have the paths of those on earth been straightened and people have been taught what pleases you, and have been saved, by Wisdom.’