Friday 10 December 2021

17The Lord,your Redeemer,the Holy One of Israel, says:“I am the Lord your God,who teaches you to profit,who leads you by the way that you should go.18Oh that you had listened to my commandments!Then your peace would have been like a riverand your righteousness like the waves of the sea.19Your offspring also would have been as the sandand the descendants of your body like its grains.His name would not be cut off nor destroyed from before me.”

1Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked,nor stand on the path of sinners,nor sit in the seat of scoffers;2but his delight is in the Lord’s law.On his law he meditates day and night.

3He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water,that produces its fruit in its season,whose leaf also does not wither.Whatever he does shall prosper.

4The wicked are not so,but are like the chaff which the wind drives away.6For the Lord knows the way of the righteous,but the way of the wicked shall perish.

16“But to what shall I compare this generation?It is like children sitting in the marketplaces,who call to their companions17and say, ‘We played the flute for you,and you didn’t dance.We mourned for you, and you didn’t lament.’18For John came neither eating nor drinking,and they say, ‘He has a demon.’19The Son of Man came eating and drinking,and they say, ‘Behold,a gluttonous man and a drunkard,a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’But wisdom is justified by her children.”