Daily Mass Readings for March 06, 2026: Gospel — Mt 21, 33-43. 45-46

³ Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons because he was a son born to him late in life, and he made a special tunic for him. ⁴ When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated Joseph and were not able to speak to him kindly. 1 2 :¹ Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go out from your country, your relatives, and your father’s household to the land that I will show you. ² Then I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, so that you will exemplify divine blessing. ³ I will bless those who bless you, but the one who treats you lightly I must curse, so that all the families of the earth may receive blessing through you.” ⁴ So Abram left, just as the Lord had told him to do, and Lot went with him. (Now Abram was 7 ⁵ years old when he departed from Haran.) ⁵ And Abram took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, and all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they left for the land of Canaan. They entered the land of Canaan. ⁶ Abram traveled through the land as far as the oak tree of Moreh at Shechem. (At that time the Canaanites were in the land.) ⁷ The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” So Abram built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him. ⁸ Then he moved from there to the hill country east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and worshiped the Lord. ⁹ Abram continually journeyed by stages down to the Negev. 1 ⁰ There was a famine in the land, so Abram went down to Egypt to stay for a while because the famine was severe. 1 ¹ As he approached Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “Look, I know that you are a beautiful woman. 1 ² When the Egyptians see you they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will keep you alive. 1 ³ So tell them you are my sister so that it may go well for me because of you and my life will be spared on account of you.” 1 ⁴ When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. 1 ⁵ When Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. So Abram’s wife was taken into the household of Pharaoh, 1 ⁶ and he did treat Abram well on account of her. Abram received sheep and cattle, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels. 1 ⁷ But the Lord struck Pharaoh and his household with severe diseases because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. 1 ⁸ So Pharaoh summoned Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why didn’t you tell me that she was your wife? 1 ⁹ Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now, here is your wife. Take her and go!” 2 ⁰ Pharaoh gave his men orders about Abram, and so they expelled him, along with his wife and all his possessions. 1 3 :¹ So Abram went up from Egypt into the Negev. He took his wife and all his possessions with him, as well as Lot. ² (Now Abram was very wealthy in livestock, silver, and gold.) ³ And he journeyed from place to place from the Negev as far as Bethel. He returned to the place where he had pitched his tent at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai. ⁴ This was the place where he had first built the altar, and there Abram worshiped the Lord. ⁵ Now Lot, who was traveling with Abram, also had flocks, herds, and tents. ⁶ But the land could not support them while they were living side by side. Because their possessions were so great, they were not able to live alongside one another. ⁷ So there were quarrels between Abram’s herdsmen and Lot’s herdsmen. (Now the Canaanites and the Perizzites were living in the land at that time.) ⁸ Abram said to Lot, “Let there be no quarreling between me and you, and between my herdsmen and your herdsmen, for we are close relatives. ⁹ Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself now from me. If you go to the left, then I’ll go to the right, but if you go to the right, then I’ll go to the left.” 1 ⁰ Lot looked up and saw the whole region of the Jordan. He noticed that all of it was well watered (this was before the Lord obliterated Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, all the way to Zoar. 1 ¹ Lot chose for himself the whole region of the Jordan and traveled toward the east. So the relatives separated from each other. 1 ² Abram settled in the land of Canaan, but Lot settled among the cities of the Jordan plain and pitched his tents next to Sodom. 1 ³ (Now the people of Sodom were extremely wicked rebels against the Lord.) 1 ⁴ After Lot had departed, the Lord said to Abram, “Look from the place where you stand to the north, south, east, and west. 1 ⁵ I will give all the land that you see to you and your descendants forever. 1 ⁶ And I will make your descendants like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone is able to count the dust of the earth, then your descendants also can be counted. 1 ⁷ Get up and walk throughout the land, for I will give it to you.” 1 ⁸ So Abram moved his tents and went to live by the oaks of Mamre in Hebron, and he built an altar to the Lord there. 1 7 :¹ When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am the Sovereign God. Walk before me and be blameless. ² Then I will confirm my covenant between me and you, and I will give you a multitude of descendants.” ³ Abram bowed down with his face to the ground, and God said to him, ⁴ “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of a multitude of nations. ⁵ No longer will your name be Abram. Instead, your name will be Abraham because I will make you the father of a multitude of nations. ⁶ I will make you extremely fruitful. I will make nations of you, and kings will descend from you. ⁷ I will confirm my covenant as a perpetual covenant between me and you. It will extend to your descendants after you throughout their generations. I will be your God and the God of your descendants after you. ⁸ I will give the whole land of Canaan—the land where you are now residing—to you and your descendants after you as a permanent possession. I will be their God.” ⁹ Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep the covenantal requirement I am imposing on you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. 1 ⁰ This is my requirement that you and your descendants after you must keep: Every male among you must be circumcised. 1 ¹ You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskins. This will be a reminder of the covenant between me and you. 1 ² Throughout your generations every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, whether born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not one of your descendants. 1 ³ They must indeed be circumcised, whether born in your house or bought with money. The sign of my covenant will be visible in your flesh as a permanent reminder. 1 ⁴ Any uncircumcised male who has not been circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin will be cut off from his people—he has failed to carry out my requirement.” 1 ⁵ Then God said to Abraham, “As for your wife, you must no longer call her Sarai; Sarah will be her name. 1 ⁶ I will bless her and will give you a son through her. I will bless her and she will become a mother of nations. Kings of countries will come from her!” 1 ⁷ Then Abraham bowed down with his face to the ground and laughed as he said to himself, “Can a son be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?” 1 ⁸ Abraham said to God, “O that Ishmael might live before you!” 1 ⁹ God said, “No, Sarah your wife is going to bear you a son, and you will name him Isaac. I will confirm my covenant with him as a perpetual covenant for his descendants after him. 2 ⁰ As for Ishmael, I have heard you. I will indeed bless him, make him fruitful, and give him a multitude of descendants. He will become the father of twelve princes; I will make him into a great nation. 2 ¹ But I will establish my covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this set time next year.” 2 ² When he finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him. 2 ³ Abraham took his son Ishmael and every male in his household (whether born in his house or bought with money) and circumcised them on that very same day, just as God had told him to do. 2 ⁴ Now Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised; 2 ⁵ his son Ishmael was thirteen years old when he was circumcised. 2 ⁶ Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised on the very same day. 2 ⁷ All the men of his household, whether born in his household or bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him. 2 8 :¹ So Isaac called for Jacob and blessed him. Then he commanded him, “You must not marry a Canaanite woman! ² Leave immediately for Paddan Aram! Go to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and find yourself a wife there, among the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. ³ May the Sovereign God bless you! May he make you fruitful and give you a multitude of descendants! Then you will become a large nation. ⁴ May he give you and your descendants the blessing he gave to Abraham so that you may possess the land God gave to Abraham, the land where you have been living as a temporary resident.” ⁵ So Isaac sent Jacob on his way, and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban son of Bethuel the Aramean and brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau. ⁶ Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him off to Paddan Aram to find a wife there. As he blessed him, Isaac commanded him, “You must not marry a Canaanite woman.” ⁷ Jacob obeyed his father and mother and left for Paddan Aram. ⁸ Then Esau realized that the Canaanite women were displeasing to his father Isaac. ⁹ So Esau went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Abraham’s son Ishmael, along with the wives he already had. 1 ⁰ Meanwhile Jacob left Beer Sheba and set out for Haran. 1 ¹ He reached a certain place where he decided to camp because the sun had gone down. He took one of the stones and placed it near his head. Then he fell asleep in that place 1 ² and had a dream. He saw a stairway erected on the earth with its top reaching to the heavens. The angels of God were going up and coming down it 1 ³ and the Lord stood at its top. He said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham and the God of your father Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the ground you are lying on. 1 ⁴ Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west, east, north, and south. And so all the families of the earth may receive blessings through you and through your descendants. 1 ⁵ I am with you! I will protect you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you!” 1 ⁶ Then Jacob woke up and thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, but I did not realize it!” 1 ⁷ He was afraid and said, “What an awesome place this is! This is nothing else than the house of God! This is the gate of heaven!” 1 ⁸ Early in the morning Jacob took the stone he had placed near his head and set it up as a sacred stone. Then he poured oil on top of it. 1 ⁹ He called that place Bethel, although the former name of the town was Luz. 2 ⁰ Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God is with me and protects me on this journey I am taking and gives me food to eat and clothing to wear, 2 ¹ and I return safely to my father’s home, then the Lord will become my God. 2 ² Then this stone that I have set up as a sacred stone will be the house of God, and I will surely give you back a tenth of everything you give me.”