Daily Reading for Monday, July 28th, 2025

Reading 1, Exodus 32:15-24, 30-34

¹⁵ Moses turned and came down the mountain with the two tablets of the Testimony in his hands, tablets inscribed on both sides, inscribed on the front and on the back.

¹⁶ The tablets were the work of God, and the writing on them was God's writing, engraved on the tablets.

¹⁷ When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, 'There is the sound of battle in the camp!'

¹⁸ But he replied: No song of victory is this sound, no lament for defeat this sound; but answering choruses I hear!

¹⁹ And there, as he approached the camp, he saw the calf and the groups dancing. Moses blazed with anger. He threw down the tablets he was holding, shattering them at the foot of the mountain.

²⁰ He seized the calf they had made and burned it, grinding it into powder which he scattered on the water, and made the Israelites drink it.

²¹ Moses then said to Aaron, 'What have these people done to you for you to have brought so great a sin on them?'

²² Aaron replied, 'My lord should not be so angry. You yourself know what a bad state these people are in!

²³ They said to me, "Make us a god to go at our head; for that Moses, the man who brought us here from Egypt -- we do not know what has become of him."

²⁴ I then said to them, "Anyone with gold, strip it off!" They gave it to me. I threw it into the fire and out came this calf!'

³⁰ On the following day Moses said to the people, 'You have committed a great sin. But now I shall go up to Yahweh: perhaps I can secure expiation for your sin.'

³¹ Moses then went back to Yahweh and said, 'Oh, this people has committed a great sin by making themselves a god of gold.

³² And yet, if it pleased you to forgive their sin. . .! If not, please blot me out of the book you have written!'

³³ Yahweh said to Moses, 'Those who have sinned against me are the ones I shall blot out of my book.

³⁴ So now go and lead the people to the place I promised to you. My angel will indeed go at your head but, on the day of punishment, I shall punish them for their sin.'

Gospel, Matthew 13:31-35

³¹ He put another parable before them, 'The kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field.

³² It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air can come and shelter in its branches.'

³³ He told them another parable, 'The kingdom of Heaven is like the yeast a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour till it was leavened all through.'

³⁴ In all this Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables; indeed, he would never speak to them except in parables.

³⁵ This was to fulfil what was spoken by the prophet: I will speak to you in parables, unfold what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.