Friday of the Second Week of Advent

Official Translation

Reading 1 – Isaiah 48.17-19

The Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says:
“I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what benefits you,
who leads you by the way that you should go.
Oh that you had listened to my commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
Your offspring also would have been as the sand and the descendants of your body like its grains.
His name would not be cut off nor destroyed from before me.”

Responsorial – Psalm 1.1-2, 3, 4+6 Resp. John 8.12

R. The one who follows the Lord will have the light of life.

Blessed is the man who does not walk
in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stand on the sinners’ path,
nor sit in the scoffers’ seat,
but whose delight is in the Lord’s law.
On his law he meditates day and night.

R. The one who follows the Lord will have the light of life.

He will be like a tree
planted by the streams of water,
that produces its fruit in its season,
whose leaf does not wither.
Whatever he does shall prosper.

R. The one who follows the Lord will have the light of life.

The wicked are not so,
but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
For the Lord watches the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked shall perish.

R. The one who follows the Lord will have the light of life.

Gospel – Matthew 11.16-19

Jesus said to the crowds:
To what shall I compare this kind?
It is like little children sitting in the marketplaces, who call to their playmates and say,
‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance.
We mourned for you, and you did not lament.’
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’
The Son of Human came eating and drinking, and they say,
‘Behold the human, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’
But wisdom is justified by her works.”