January 16: Daily Readings & Quote

Our Lord did not say, "You will not be troubled, you will not be tempted, you will not be distressed." He said, "You will not be overcome."

- Blessed Julian of Norwich

Today's readings are:

Genesis 37-39

Mark 6:14-29

1

Jacob settled in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan.

2

This is his family history. When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was tending the flocks with his brothers; he was an assistant to the sons of his father's wives Bilhah and Zilpah, and he brought his father bad reports about them.

3

Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age; and he had made him a long tunic.

4

When his brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his sons, they hated him so much that they would not even greet him.

5

Once Joseph had a dream, which he told to his brothers:

6

"Listen to this dream I had.

7

There we were, binding sheaves in the field, when suddenly my sheaf rose to an upright position, and your sheaves formed a ring around my sheaf and bowed down to it."

8

"Are you really going to make yourself king over us?" his brothers asked him. "Or impose your rule on us?" So they hated him all the more because of his talk about his dreams.

9

Then he had another dream, and this one, too, he told to his brothers. "I had another dream," he said; "this time, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me."

10

When he also told it to his father, his father reproved him. "What is the meaning of this dream of yours?" he asked. "Can it be that I and your mother and your brothers are to come and bow to the ground before you?"

11

So his brothers were wrought up against him but his father pondered the matter.

12

One day, when his brothers had gone to pasture their father's flocks at Shechem,

13

Israel said to Joseph, "Your brothers, you know, are tending our flocks at Shechem. Get ready; I will send you to them." "I am ready," Joseph answered.

14

"Go then," he replied; "see if all is well with your brothers and the flocks, and bring back word." So he sent him off from the valley of Hebron. When Joseph reached Shechem,

15

a man met him as he was wandering about in the fields. "What are you looking for?" the man asked him.

16

"I am looking for my brothers," he answered. "Could you please tell me where they are tending the flocks?"

17

The man told him, "They have moved on from here; in fact, I heard them say, 'Let us go on to Dothan.'" So Joseph went after his brothers and caught up with them in Dothan.

18

They noticed him from a distance, and before he came up to them, they plotted to kill him.

19

They said to one another: "Here comes that master dreamer!

20

Come on, let us kill him and throw him into one of the cisterns here; we could say that a wild beast devoured him. We shall then see what comes of his dreams."

21

¹ When Reuben heard this, he tried to save him from their hands, saying: "We must not take his life.

22

Instead of shedding blood," he continued, "just throw him into that cistern there in the desert; but don't kill him outright." His purpose was to rescue him from their hands and restore him to his father.

23

So when Joseph came up to them, they stripped him of the long tunic he had on;

24

then they took him and threw him into the cistern, which was empty and dry.

25

They then sat down to their meal. Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels laden with gum, balm and resin to be taken down to Egypt.

26

Judah said to his brothers: "What is to be gained by killing our brother and concealing his blood?

27

Rather, let us sell him to these Ishmaelites, instead of doing away with him ourselves. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh." His brothers agreed.

28

² They sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. Some Midianite traders passed by, and they pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and took him to Egypt.

29

When Reuben went back to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not in it, he tore his clothes,

30

and returning to his brothers, he exclaimed: "The boy is gone! And I--where can I turn?"

31

They took Joseph's tunic, and after slaughtering a goat, dipped the tunic in its blood.

32

Then they sent someone to bring the long tunic to their father, with the message: "We found this. See whether it is your son's tunic or not."

33

He recognized it and exclaimed: "My son's tunic! A wild beast has devoured him! Joseph has been torn to pieces!"

34

Then Jacob rent his clothes, put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned his son many days.

35

Though his sons and daughters tried to console him, he refused all consolation, saying, "No, I will go down mourning to my son in the nether world." Thus did his father lament him.

36

The Midianites, meanwhile, sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, a courtier of Pharaoh and his chief steward.

1

¹ About that time Judah parted from his brothers and pitched his tent near a certain Adullamite named Hirah.

2

There he met the daughter of a Canaanite named Shua, married her, and had relations with her.

3

She conceived and bore a son, whom she named Er.

4

Again she conceived and bore a son, whom she named Onan.

5

² Then she bore still another son, whom she named Shelah. They were in Chezib when he was born.

6

Judah got a wife named Tamar for his first-born, Er.

7

But Er, Judah's first-born, greatly offended the LORD; so the LORD took his life.

8

³ Then Judah said to Onan, "Unite with your brother's widow, in fulfillment of your duty as brother-in-law, and thus preserve your brother's line."

9

Onan, however, knew that the descendants would not be counted as his; so whenever he had relations with his brother's widow, he wasted his seed on the ground, to avoid contributing offspring for his brother.

10

What he did greatly offended the LORD, and the LORD took his life too.

11

Thereupon Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Stay as a widow in your father's house until my son Shelah grows up"--for he feared that Shelah also might die like his brothers. So Tamar went to live in her father's house.

12

Years passed, and Judah's wife, the daughter of Shua, died. After Judah completed the period of mourning, he went up to Timnah for the shearing of his sheep, in company with his friend Hirah the Adullamite.

13

When Tamar was told that her father-in-law was on his way up to Timnah to shear his sheep,

14

she took off her widow's garb, veiled her face by covering herself with a shawl, and sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the way to Timnah; for she was aware that, although Shelah was now grown up, she had not been given to him in marriage.

15

When Judah saw her, he mistook her for a harlot, since she had covered her face.

16

So he went over to her at the roadside, and not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, he said, "Come, let me have intercourse with you." She replied, "What will you pay me for letting you have intercourse with me?"

17

He answered, "I will send you a kid from the flock." "Very well," she said, "provided you leave a pledge until you send it."

18

⁴ Judah asked, "What pledge am I to give to you?" She answered, "Your seal and cord, and the staff you carry." So he gave them to her and had intercourse with her, and she conceived by him.

19

When she went away, she took off her shawl and put on her widow's garb again.

20

Judah sent the kid by his friend the Adullamite to recover the pledge from the woman; but he could not find her.

21

⁵ So he asked the men of the place, "Where is the temple prostitute, the one by the roadside in Enaim?" But they answered, "There has never been a temple prostitute here."

22

He went back to Judah and told him, "I could not find her; and besides, the men of the place said there was no temple prostitute there."

23

"Let her keep the things," Judah replied; "otherwise we shall become a laughingstock. After all, I did send her the kid, even though you were unable to find her."

24

About three months later, Judah was told that his daughter-in-law Tamar had played the harlot and was then with child from her harlotry. "Bring her out," cried Judah; "she shall be burned."

25

But as they were bringing her out, she sent word to her father-in-law, "It is by the man to whom these things belong that I am with child. Please verify," she added, "whose seal and cord and whose staff these are."

26

Judah recognized them and said, "She is more in the right than I am, since I did not give her to my son Shelah." But he had no further relations with her.

27

When the time of her delivery came, she was found to have twins in her womb.

28

While she was giving birth, one infant put out his hand; and the midwife, taking a crimson thread, tied it on his hand, to note that this one came out first.

29

⁶ But as he withdrew his hand, his brother came out; and she said, "What a breach you have made for yourself!" So he was called Perez.

30

⁷ Afterward his brother came out; he was called Zerah.

1

¹ When Joseph was taken down to Egypt, a certain Egyptian (Potiphar, a courtier of Pharaoh and his chief steward) bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him there.

2

But since the LORD was with him, Joseph got on very well and was assigned to the household of his Egyptian master.

3

When his master saw that the LORD was with him and brought him success in whatever he did,

4

he took a liking to Joseph and made him his personal attendant; he put him in charge of his household and entrusted to him all his possessions.

5

From the moment that he put him in charge of his household and all his possessions, the LORD blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; in fact, the LORD'S blessing was on everything he owned, both inside the house and out.

6

Having left everything he owned in Joseph's charge, he gave no thought, with Joseph there, to anything but the food he ate. Now Joseph was strikingly handsome in countenance and body.

7

After a time, his master's wife began to look fondly at him and said, "Lie with me."

8

But he refused. "As long as I am here," he told her, "my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, but has entrusted to me all he owns.

9

He wields no more authority in this house than I do, and he has withheld from me nothing but yourself, since you are his wife. How, then, could I commit so great a wrong and thus stand condemned before God?"

10

Although she tried to entice him day after day, he would not agree to lie beside her, or even stay near her.

11

One such day, when Joseph came into the house to do his work, and none of the household servants were then in the house,

12

she laid hold of him by his cloak, saying, "Lie with me!" But leaving the cloak in her hand, he got away from her and ran outside.

13

When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand as he fled outside,

14

she screamed for her household servants and told them, "Look! my husband has brought in a Hebrew slave to make sport of us! He came in here to lie with me, but I cried out as loud as I could.

15

When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran away outside."

16

She kept the cloak with her until his master came home.

17

Then she told him the same story: "The Hebrew slave whom you brought here broke in on me, to make sport of me.

18

But when I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and fled outside."

19

As soon as the master heard his wife's story about how his slave had treated her, he became enraged.

20

He seized Joseph and threw him into the jail where the royal prisoners were confined. But even while he was in prison,

21

the LORD remained with Joseph; he showed him kindness by making the chief jailer well-disposed toward him.

22

The chief jailer put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners in the jail, and everything that had to be done there was done under his management.

23

The chief jailer did not concern himself with anything at all that was in Joseph's charge, since the LORD was with him and brought success to all he did.

14

¹⁰ King Herod ¹¹ heard about it, for his fame had become widespread, and people were saying, "John the Baptist has been raised from the dead; that is why mighty powers are at work in him."

15

Others were saying, "He is Elijah"; still others, "He is a prophet like any of the prophets."

16

But when Herod learned of it, he said, "It is John whom I beheaded. He has been raised up."

17

¹² Herod was the one who had John arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married.

18

John had said to Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife."

19

Herodias ¹³ harbored a grudge against him and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so.

20

Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man, and kept him in custody. When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed, yet he liked to listen to him.

21

She had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday, gave a banquet for his courtiers, his military officers, and the leading men of Galilee.

22

Herodias's own daughter came in and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests. The king said to the girl, "Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you."

23

He even swore (many things) to her, "I will grant you whatever you ask of me, even to half of my kingdom."

24

She went out and said to her mother, "What shall I ask for?" She replied, "The head of John the Baptist."

25

The girl hurried back to the king's presence and made her request, "I want you to give me at once on a platter the head of John the Baptist."

26

The king was deeply distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests he did not wish to break his word to her.

27

So he promptly dispatched an executioner with orders to bring back his head. He went off and beheaded him in the prison.

28

He brought in the head on a platter and gave it to the girl. The girl in turn gave it to her mother.

29

When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.