Daily Reading for Friday, September 23rd, 2022

Reading 1, Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

¹ There is a season for everything, a time for every occupation under heaven:

² A time for giving birth, a time for dying; a time for planting, a time for uprooting what has been planted.

³ A time for killing, a time for healing; a time for knocking down, a time for building.

⁴ A time for tears, a time for laughter; a time for mourning, a time for dancing.

⁵ A time for throwing stones away, a time for gathering them; a time for embracing, a time to refrain from embracing.

⁶ A time for searching, a time for losing; a time for keeping, a time for discarding.

⁷ A time for tearing, a time for sewing; a time for keeping silent, a time for speaking.

⁸ A time for loving, a time for hating; a time for war, a time for peace.

⁹ What do people gain from the efforts they make?

¹⁰ I contemplate the task that God gives humanity to labour at.

¹¹ All that he does is apt for its time; but although he has given us an awareness of the passage of time, we can grasp neither the beginning nor the end of what God does.

Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 144:1B AND 2ABC, 3-4

¹ [Of David] Blessed be Yahweh, my rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle,

² my faithful love, my bastion, my citadel, my Saviour; I shelter behind him, my shield, he makes the peoples submit to me.

³ Yahweh, what is a human being for you to notice, a child of Adam for you to think about?

⁴ Human life, a mere puff of wind, days as fleeting as a shadow.