January 13: Daily Readings & Quote

St. Hilary of Poitiers

It is the peculiar property of the Church that when she is buffeted, she is triumphant: when she is deserted by her supporters, she holds the field.

-St. Hilary of Poitiers

Today's readings are:

Genesis 29-30

Mark 5:1-20

1

¹ After Jacob resumed his journey, he came to the land of the Easterners.

2

Looking about, he saw a well in the open country, with three droves of sheep huddled near it, for droves were watered from that well. A large stone covered the mouth of the well.

3

Only when all the shepherds were assembled there could they roll the stone away from the mouth of the well and water the flocks. Then they would put the stone back again over the mouth of the well.

4

Jacob said to them, "Friends, where are you from?" "We are from Haran," they replied.

5

Then he asked them, "Do you know Laban, son of Nahor?" "We do," they answered.

6

He inquired further, "Is he well?" "He is," they answered; "and here comes his daughter Rachel with his flock."

7

Then he said: "There is still much daylight left; it is hardly the time to bring the animals home. Why don't you water the flocks now, and then continue pasturing them?"

8

"We cannot," they replied, "until all the shepherds are here to roll the stone away from the mouth of the well; only then can we water the flocks."

9

While he was still talking with them, Rachel arrived with her father's sheep; she was the one who tended them.

10

As soon as Jacob saw Rachel, the daughter of his uncle Laban, with the sheep of his uncle Laban, he went up, rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well, and watered his uncle's sheep.

11

² Then Jacob kissed Rachel and burst into tears.

12

He told her that he was her father's relative, Rebekah's son, and she ran to tell her father.

13

When Laban heard the news about his sister's son Jacob, he hurried out to meet him. After embracing and kissing him, he brought him to his house. Jacob then recounted to Laban all that had happened,

14

³ and Laban said to him, "You are indeed my flesh and blood." After Jacob had stayed with him a full month,

15

Laban said to him: "Should you serve me for nothing just because you are a relative of mine? Tell me what your wages should be."

16

Now Laban had two daughters; the older was called Leah, the younger Rachel.

17

⁴ Leah had lovely eyes, but Rachel was well formed and beautiful.

18

⁵ Since Jacob had fallen in love with Rachel, he answered Laban, "I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel."

19

Laban replied, "I prefer to give her to you rather than to an outsider. Stay with me."

20

So Jacob served seven years for Rachel, yet they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her.

21

Then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife, that I may consummate my marriage with her, for my term is now completed."

22

So Laban invited all the local inhabitants and gave a feast.

23

At nightfall he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob consummated the marriage with her.

24

(Laban assigned his slave girl Zilpah to his daughter Leah as her maidservant.)

25

⁶ In the morning Jacob was amazed: it was Leah! So he cried out to Laban: "How could you do this to me! Was it not for Rachel that I served you? Why did you dupe me?"

26

"It is not the custom in our country," Laban replied, "to marry off a younger daughter before an older one.

27

⁷ Finish the bridal week for this one, and then I will give you the other too, in return for another seven years of service with me."

28

Jacob agreed. He finished the bridal week for Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel in marriage.

29

(Laban assigned his slave girl Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maidservant.)

30

Jacob then consummated his marriage with Rachel also, and he loved her more than Leah. Thus he remained in Laban's service another seven years.

31

When the LORD saw that Leah was unloved, he made her fruitful, while Rachel remained barren.

32

⁸ Leah conceived and bore a son, and she named him Reuben; for she said, "It means, 'The LORD saw my misery; now my husband will love me.'"

33

⁹ She conceived again and bore a son, and said, "It means, 'The LORD heard that I was unloved,' and therefore he has given me this one also"; so she named him Simeon.

34

¹⁰ Again she conceived and bore a son, and she said, "Now at last my husband will become attached to me, since I have now borne him three sons"; that is why she named him Levi.

35

¹¹ Once more she conceived and bore a son, and she said, "This time I will give grateful praise to the LORD"; therefore she named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing children.

 

1

When Rachel saw that she failed to bear children to Jacob, she became envious of her sister. She said to Jacob, "Give me children or I shall die!"

2

In anger Jacob retorted, "Can I take the place of God, who has denied you the fruit of the womb?"

3

¹ She replied, "Here is my maidservant Bilhah. Have intercourse with her, and let her give birth on my knees, so that I too may have offspring, at least through her."

4

² So she gave him her maidservant Bilhah as a consort, and Jacob had intercourse with her.

5

When Bilhah conceived and bore a son,

6

³ Rachel said, "God has vindicated me; indeed he has heeded my plea and given me a son." Therefore she named him Dan.

7

Rachel's maidservant Bilhah conceived again and bore a second son,

8

⁴ and Rachel said, "I engaged in a fateful struggle with my sister, and I prevailed." So she named him Naphtali.

9

When Leah saw that she had ceased to bear children, she gave her maidservant Zilpah to Jacob as a consort.

10

So Jacob had intercourse with Zilpah, and she conceived and bore a son.

11

⁵ Leah then said, "What good luck!" So she named him Gad.

12

Then Leah's maidservant Zilpah bore a second son to Jacob;

13

⁶ and Leah said, "What good fortune!"--meaning, "Women call me fortunate." So she named him Asher.

14

⁷ One day, during the wheat harvest, when Reuben was out in the field, he came upon some mandrakes which he brought home to his mother Leah. Rachel asked Leah, "Please let me have some of your son's mandrakes."

15

Leah replied, "Was it not enough for you to take away my husband, that you must now take my son's mandrakes too?" "Very well, then!" Rachel answered. "In exchange for your son's mandrakes, Jacob may lie with you tonight."

16

That evening, when Jacob came home from the fields, Leah went out to meet him. "You are now to come in with me," she told him, "because I have paid for you with my son's mandrakes." So that night he slept with her,

17

and God heard her prayer; she conceived and bore a fifth son to Jacob.

18

⁸ Leah then said, "God has given me my reward for having let my husband have my maidservant"; so she named him Issachar.

19

Leah conceived again and bore a sixth son to Jacob;

20

⁹ and she said, "God has brought me a precious gift. This time my husband will offer me presents, now that I have borne him six sons"; so she named him Zebulun.

21

Finally, she gave birth to a daughter, and she named her Dinah.

22

Then God remembered Rachel; he heard her prayer and made her fruitful.

23

She conceived and bore a son, and she said, "God has removed my disgrace."

24

¹⁰ So she named him Joseph, meaning, "May the LORD add another son to this one for me!"

25

After Rachel gave birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban: "Give me leave to go to my homeland.

26

Let me have my wives, for whom I served you, and my children, too, that I may depart. You know very well the service that I have rendered you."

27

Laban answered him: "If you will please. . . . "I have learned through divination that it is because of you that God has blessed me.

28

So," he continued, "state what wages you want from me, and I will pay them."

29

Jacob replied: "You know what work I did for you and how well your livestock fared under my care;

30

the little you had before I came has grown into very much, since the LORD'S blessings came upon you in my company. Therefore I should now do something for my own household as well."

31

"What should I pay you?" Laban asked. Jacob answered: "You do not have to pay me anything outright. I will again pasture and tend your flock, if you do this one thing for me:

32

¹¹ go through your whole flock today and remove from it every dark animal among the sheep and every spotted or speckled one among the goats. Only such animals shall be my wages.

33

In the future, whenever you check on these wages of mine, let my honesty testify against me: any animal in my possession that is not a speckled or spotted goat, or a dark sheep, got there by theft!"

34

"Very well," agreed Laban. "Let it be as you say."

35

¹² That same day Laban removed the streaked and spotted he-goats and all the speckled and spotted she-goats, all those with some white on them, as well as the fully dark-colored sheep; these he left. . . in charge of his sons.

36

Then he put a three days' journey between himself and Jacob, while Jacob continued to pasture the rest of Laban's flock.

37

Jacob, however, got some fresh shoots of poplar, almond and plane trees, and he made white stripes in them by peeling off the bark down to the white core of the shoots.

38

The rods that he had thus peeled he then set upright in the watering troughs, so that they would be in front of the animals that drank from the troughs. When the animals were in heat as they came to drink,

39

¹³ the goats mated by the rods, and so they brought forth streaked, speckled and spotted kids.

40

The sheep, on the other hand, Jacob kept apart, and he set these animals to face the streaked or fully dark-colored animals of Laban. Thus he produced special flocks of his own, which he did not put with Laban's flock.

41

Moreover, whenever the hardier animals were in heat, Jacob would set the rods in the troughs in full view of these animals, so that they mated by the rods;

42

but with the weaker animals he would not put the rods there. So the feeble animals would go to Laban, but the sturdy ones to Jacob.

43

Thus the man grew increasingly prosperous, and he came to own not only large flocks but also male and female servants and camels and asses.

 

1

¹ They came to the other side of the sea, to the territory of the Gerasenes.

2

When he got out of the boat, at once a man ² from the tombs who had an unclean spirit met him.

3

The man had been dwelling among the tombs, and no one could restrain him any longer, even with a chain.

4

In fact, he had frequently been bound with shackles and chains, but the chains had been pulled apart by him and the shackles smashed, and no one was strong enough to subdue him.

5

Night and day among the tombs and on the hillsides he was always crying out and bruising himself with stones.

6

Catching sight of Jesus from a distance, he ran up and prostrated himself before him,

7

crying out in a loud voice, "What have you to do with me, ³ Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me!"

8

(He had been saying to him, "Unclean spirit, come out of the man!")

9

⁴ He asked him, "What is your name?" He replied, "Legion is my name. There are many of us."

10

And he pleaded earnestly with him not to drive them away from that territory.

11

Now a large herd of swine ⁵ was feeding there on the hillside.

12

And they pleaded with him, "Send us into the swine. Let us enter them."

13

And he let them, and the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine. The herd of about two thousand rushed down a steep bank into the sea, where they were drowned.

14

The swineherds ran away and reported the incident in the town and throughout the countryside. And people came out to see what had happened.

15

As they approached Jesus, they caught sight of the man who had been possessed by Legion, sitting there clothed and in his right mind. And they were seized with fear.

16

Those who witnessed the incident explained to them what had happened to the possessed man and to the swine.

17

Then they began to beg him to leave their district.

18

As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed pleaded to remain with him.

19

But he would not permit him but told him instead, "Go home ⁶ to your family and announce to them all that the Lord in his pity has done for you."

20

Then the man went off and began to proclaim in the Decapolis what Jesus had done for him; and all were amazed.