Daily Reading for Friday, August 20th, 2021

Reading 1, Ruth 1:1, 3-6, 14-16, 22

¹ In the days when the Judges were governing, a famine occurred in the country and a certain man from Bethlehem of Judah went-he, his wife and his two sons -- to live in the Plains of Moab.

³ Elimelech, Naomi's husband, died, and she and her two sons were left.

⁴ These married Moabite women: one was called Orpah and the other Ruth. They lived there for about ten years.

⁵ Mahlon and Chilion then both died too, and Naomi was thus bereft of her two sons and her husband.

⁶ She then decided to come back from the Plains of Moab with her daughters-in-law, having heard in the Plains of Moab that God had visited his people and given them food.

¹⁴ They started weeping loudly all over again; Orpah then kissed her mother-in-law and went back to her people. But Ruth stayed with her.

¹⁵ Naomi then said, 'Look, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her god. Go home, too; follow your sister-in-law.'

¹⁶ But Ruth said, 'Do not press me to leave you and to stop going with you, for wherever you go, I shall go, wherever you live, I shall live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.

²² This was how Naomi came home with her daughter-in-law, Ruth the Moabitess, on returning from the Plains of Moab. They arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 146:5-6, 7, 8-9, 9-10

⁵ How blessed is he who has Jacob's God to help him, his hope is in Yahweh his God,

⁶ who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them. He keeps faith for ever,

⁷ gives justice to the oppressed, gives food to the hungry; Yahweh sets prisoners free.

⁸ Yahweh gives sight to the blind, lifts up those who are bowed down.

⁹ Yahweh protects the stranger, he sustains the orphan and the widow. Yahweh loves the upright,but he frustrates the wicked.

¹⁰ Yahweh reigns for ever, your God, Zion, from age to age.