Friday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time (II)

Official Translation

Reading 1 – Isaiah 38.1-6, 21-22, 7-8

In those days
Hezekiah was sick and near death.
Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz,
came to him, and said to him,
“The Lord says,
‘Put your house in order,
for you will die, and not live.’”

Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall
and prayed to the Lord,
and said, “Remember now, Lord, I beg you,
how I have walked before you
in truth and with a perfect heart,
and have done what is good in your sight.”
Hezekiah wept bitterly.

Then the Lord’s word came to Isaiah, saying,
“Go, and tell Hezekiah,
‘The Lord says, the God of David your father,
“I have heard your prayer.
I have seen your tears.
Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life.
I will deliver you and this city
out of the hand of the king of Assyria,
and I will defend this city.

Then Isaiah said,
“Let them take a cake of figs,
and lay it for a poultice on the boil,
and he shall recover.”
Hezekiah said,
“What is the sign
that I will go up to the Lord’s house?”

This shall be the sign to you from the Lord,
that the Lord will do this thing
that he has spoken.
Behold, I will cause the shadow on the sundial,
which has gone down on the sundial of Ahaz,
to return back ten steps.
So the sun returned ten steps
on the sundial on which it had gone down.”’”

Responsorial – Isaiah 38.10, 11, 12abcd, 16 Resp. 17b

R. You have in love for my soul delivered it from death, O Lord.

I said,
“In the noontime of my life I depart.
I go to the gates of Sheol.
I am deprived of the rest of my years.”

R. You have in love for my soul delivered it from death, O Lord.

I said, “I will not see the Lord,
in the land of the living.
I will see man no more
among the inhabitants of the world.

R. You have in love for my soul delivered it from death, O Lord.

My dwelling, like a shepherd’s tent,
is removed and is carried away from me.
You have rolled up, like a weaver, my life.
and will cut me off from the loom.

R. You have in love for my soul delivered it from death, O Lord.

Lord, men live by these things;
and my spirit finds life in all of them:
you restore me, and cause me to live.

R. You have in love for my soul delivered it from death, O Lord.

Gospel – Matthew 12.1-8

Jesus went on the Sabbath day
through the grain fields.
His disciples were hungry
and began to pluck heads of grain
and to eat.
But the Pharisees, when they saw it,
said to him,
“Behold, your disciples do
what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.”

But he said to them,
“Have you not read what David did,
when he was hungry,
and those who were with him;
how he entered into God’s house,
and ate the show bread,
which was not lawful for him to eat,
nor for those who were with him,
but only for the priests?
Or have you not read in the law,
that on the Sabbath day,
the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath,
and are guiltless?

But I tell you that one greater
than the temple is here.
If you had known what this means,
‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’
you would not have condemned the guiltless.
For the Son of Human is Lord of the Sabbath.”