Daily Reading for Friday, February 18th, 2022

Reading 1, James 2:14-24, 26

¹⁴ How does it help, my brothers, when someone who has never done a single good act claims to have faith? Will that faith bring salvation?

¹⁵ If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on,

¹⁶ and one of you says to them, 'I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty,' without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that?

¹⁷ In the same way faith, if good deeds do not go with it, is quite dead.

¹⁸ But someone may say: So you have faith and I have good deeds? Show me this faith of yours without deeds, then! It is by my deeds that I will show you my faith.

¹⁹ You believe in the one God -- that is creditable enough, but even the demons have the same belief, and they tremble with fear.

²⁰ Fool! Would you not like to know that faith without deeds is useless?

²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by his deed, because he offered his son Isaac on the altar?

²² So you can see that his faith was working together with his deeds; his faith became perfect by what he did.

²³ In this way the scripture was fulfilled: Abraham put his faith in God, and this was considered as making him upright; and he received the name 'friend of God'.

²⁴ You see now that it is by deeds, and not only by believing, that someone is justified.

²⁶ As a body without a spirit is dead, so is faith without deeds.

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 112:1-2, 3-4, 5-6

¹ Alleluia! How blessed is anyone who fears Yahweh, who delights in his commandments!

² His descendants shall be powerful on earth, the race of the honest shall receive blessings:

³ Riches and wealth for his family; his uprightness stands firm for ever.

⁴ For the honest he shines as a lamp in the dark, generous, tender-hearted, and upright.

⁵ All goes well for one who lends generously, who is honest in all his dealing;

⁶ for all time to come he will not stumble, for all time to come the upright will be remembered.