Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Official Translation

Reading 1 – Jeremiah 11.18-20

I knew the plot, for the Lord gave me knowledge of it,
It was then that you showed me their doings.

But I was like a gentle lamb led to slaughter;
and I had not known
that they had devised devices against me, saying,
“Let us destroy the tree with its fruit,
and let us cut him off from the land of the living,
that his name may be no more remembered.”

But, O Lord of Hosts, who judges righteously,
who tests the heart and the mind,
I shall see your vengeance on them;
for to you have I entrusted my cause.

Responsorial – Psalm 7.2-3, 9bc-10, 11-12 R. 2a

R. O Lord, my God, I take refuge in you.

O Lord, my God, I take refuge in you.
Save me from all those who pursue me, and deliver me,
lest they tear apart my soul like a lion,
ripping it in pieces, while there is no one to save me.

R. O Lord, my God, I take refuge in you.

Judge me, Lord, according to my righteousness,
and according to my integrity that is in me.
Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end,
but establish the righteous.
Minds and hearts are searched by the righteous God!

R. O Lord, my God, I take refuge in you.

My shield is with God,
who saves the upright in heart.
God is a just judge,
a God who has indignation every day.

R. O Lord, my God, I take refuge in you.

Gospel – John 7.40-53

Much of the crowd,
when they heard these words, said,
“This is truly the Prophet.”
Others said, “This is the Christ.”
But some said, “The Christ
does not come out of Galilee, does he?
Do not the Scriptures say that
the Christ comes of the seed of David,
and from Bethlehem,
the village where David was?”
So there arose a division in the crowd because of him.
Some of them would have arrested him,
but no one laid hands on him.

The officers therefore went
to the chief priests and Pharisees,
and they said to them, “Why did you not bring him?”
The officers answered,
“No one ever spoke like this human!”
The Pharisees therefore answered them,
“You are not also led astray, are you?
Have any of the rulers believed in him,
or the Pharisees?
But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.”
Nicodemus (who came to him by night and was one of them)
said to them,
“Does our law judge a human,
unless it first hears from him personally
and knows what he does?”
They answered him,
“Are you also from Galilee?
Search, and see that no prophet
rises up out of Galilee.”

Each one went to their own house.