Daily Reading for Thursday, February 24th, 2022

Reading 1, James 5:1-6

¹ Well now, you rich! Lament, weep for the miseries that are coming to you.

² Your wealth is rotting, your clothes are all moth-eaten.

³ All your gold and your silver are corroding away, and the same corrosion will be a witness against you and eat into your body. It is like a fire which you have stored up for the final days.

⁴ Can you hear crying out against you the wages which you kept back from the labourers mowing your fields? The cries of the reapers have reached the ears of the Lord Sabaoth.

⁵ On earth you have had a life of comfort and luxury; in the time of slaughter you went on eating to your heart's content.

⁶ It was you who condemned the upright and killed them; they offered you no resistance.

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 49:14-15, 15-16, 17-18, 19-20

¹⁴ They are penned in Sheol like sheep, Death will lead them to pasture, and those who are honest will rule over them. In the morning all trace of them will be gone, Sheol will be their home.

¹⁵ But my soul God will ransom from the clutches of Sheol, and will snatch me up.

¹⁶ Do not be overawed when someone gets rich, and lives in ever greater splendour;

¹⁷ when he dies he will take nothing with him, his wealth will not go down with him.

¹⁸ Though he pampered himself while he lived -- and people praise you for looking after yourself-

¹⁹ he will go to join the ranks of his ancestors, who will never again see the light.

²⁰ In prosperity people lose their good sense, they become no better than dumb animals.