First Reading
Isaiah 40:1-11
Read this as the first big movement of the day. Notice what God is doing, who is speaking, and what part of the story or teaching should stay with you.
1Be comforted, be comforted, my people, says your God.
2Speak you to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her: for her evil is come to an end, her sin is forgiven: she has received of the hand of the Lord double for all her sins.
3The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare you the way of the Lord, prepare in the wilderness the paths of our God.
4Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain.
5And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord has said.
6The voice of one, saying: Cry. And I said: What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the held.
7The grass is withered, and the dower is fallen, because the spirit of the Lord has blown upon it. Indeed the people is grass:
8The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen: but the word of our Lord lasts forever.
9Get you up upon a high mountain, you that bringest good news to Sion: lift up your voice with strength, you that bringest good news to Jerusalem: lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Juda: Look your God:
10Look the Lord God shall come with strength, and his arm shall rule: Look his reward is with him and his work is before him.
11He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom, and he himself shall carry them that are with young.