MASS READINGS
26 July 2021, General Week 17 - Monday
FIRST READING
"This people has committed a great sin: they made themselves gods of gold"
Reading the Book of Exodus 32 : 15-24.30-34
In those days,
Moses came down from the mountain.
He carried the two tables of the Testimony;
these tables were written on both sides;
they were the work of God,
and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on these tablets.
Joshua heard the noise and the tumult of the people
and said to Moses,
“Sound of battle in the camp. "
Moses replied:
" These noises are not songs of victory or of defeat;
what I hear are hymns answering each other. "
As he neared the camp,
he saw the calf and the dances.
He burst into anger,
threw down the tables he was carrying,
and smashed them at the bottom of the mountain.
He grabbed the calf they had made,
burned it, reduced it to dust, which
he scattered on the surface of the water.
And this water he made the children of Israel drink.
Moses said to Aaron,
“What then did this people do
to you that you brought them into such a great sin? "
Aaron said,
" Let my lord does not ignite anger!
You know very well that these people are prone to evil!
They are the ones who told me:
“Make us gods who walk before us.
For this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt,
we do not know what happened to him. ”
I said to them,
"Those of you who have gold,
let them go."
They gave it to
me , and I threw it in the fire,
and that calf came out of it. "
The next day, Moses said to the people,
“You have committed a great sin.
Now, I'm going to go up to the Lord.
Maybe I will get the remission of your sin. »
Moses returned to the Lord and said to him:
« Alas! This people committed a great sin:
they made themselves gods of gold.
Ah, if you wanted to take away their sin!
Or else, erase me from your book, the
one you wrote. "
The Lord answered Moses:
" He whom I will blot out of my book,
it is he who has sinned against me.
Go therefore, lead the people
to the place which I have indicated to you,
and my angel will go before you.
The day I intervene,
I will punish them for their sin. "
- Word of the Lord.
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