Daily Mass Readings for February 18, 2024: Gospel — Mc 1, 12-15

⁸ God said to Noah and his sons, ⁹ “Look. I now confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you 1 ⁰ and with every living creature that is with you, including the birds, the domestic animals, and every living creature of the earth with you, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature of the earth. 1 ¹ I confirm my covenant with you: Never again will all living things be wiped out by the waters of a flood; never again will a flood destroy the earth.” 1 ² And God said, “This is the guarantee of the covenant I am making with you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all subsequent generations: 1 ³ I will place my rainbow in the clouds, and it will become a guarantee of the covenant between me and the earth. 1 ⁴ Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, 1 ⁵ then I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures of all kinds. Never again will the waters become a flood and destroy all living things.

1 ⁸ Because Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring you to God, by being put to death in the flesh but by being made alive in the spirit. 1 ⁹ In it he went and preached to the spirits in prison, 2 ⁰ after they were disobedient long ago when God patiently waited in the days of Noah as an ark was being constructed. In the ark a few, that is eight souls, were delivered through water. 2 ¹ And this prefigured baptism, which now saves you—not the washing off of physical dirt but the pledge of a good conscience to God—through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 2 ² who went into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels and authorities and powers subject to him.