July 4, 2014

Reading

The Book of the Prophet Amos    8: 4-6, 9-12

8:4	Hear this, you who crush the poor and who make those in need of land to do without.
8:5	You say, “When will the first day of the month be over, so we can sell our wares, and the sabbath, so we can open the grain: in order that we may decrease the measure, and increase the price, and substitute deceitful scales,
8:6	in order that we may possess the destitute with money, and the poor for a pair of shoes, and may sell even the refuse of the grain?”
8:9	And it will be in that day, says the Lord God, that the sun will decline at midday, and I will cause the earth to become dark on the day of light.
8:10	And I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your hymns into lamentation. And I will put sackcloth over every one of your backs, and baldness on every head. And I will begin it like the mourning for an only-begotten son, and complete it like a bitter day.
8:11	Behold, the days pass, says the Lord, and I will send a famine on the earth: not a famine of bread, nor of thirst for water, but for hearing the word of the Lord.
8:12	And they will move even from sea to sea, and from the North all the way to the East. They will wander around seeking the word of the Lord, and they will not find it.

Gospel

The Holy Gospel According to Matthew   9: 9-13

9:9	And when Jesus passed on from there, he saw, sitting at the tax office, a man named Matthew. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And rising up, he followed him.
9:10	And it happened that, as he was sitting down to eat in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners arrived, and they sat down to eat with Jesus and his disciples.
9:11	And the Pharisees, seeing this, said to his disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
9:12	But Jesus, hearing this, said: “It is not those who are healthy who are in need of a physician, but those who have maladies.
9:13	So then, go out and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the just, but sinners.”