Daily Mass Readings for December 08, 2026: Gospel — Lc 1,26-38

⁹ But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 1 ⁰ The man replied, “I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” 1 ¹ And the Lord God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 1 ² The man said, “The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.” 1 ³ So the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman replied, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.” 1 ⁴ The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the cattle and all the living creatures of the field! On your belly you will crawl and dust you will eat all the days of your life. 1 ⁵ And I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” 2 0 :¹ Abraham journeyed from there to the Negev region and settled between Kadesh and Shur. While he lived as a temporary resident in Gerar, ² Abraham said about his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” So Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent for Sarah and took her. ³ But God appeared to Abimelech in a dream at night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken, for she is someone else’s wife.” ⁴ Now Abimelech had not gone near her. He said, “Lord, would you really slaughter an innocent nation? ⁵ Did Abraham not say to me, ‘She is my sister’? And she herself said, ‘He is my brother.’ I have done this with a clear conscience and with innocent hands!” ⁶ Then in the dream God replied to him, “Yes, I know that you have done this with a clear conscience. That is why I have kept you from sinning against me and why I did not allow you to touch her. ⁷ But now give back the man’s wife. Indeed he is a prophet and he will pray for you; thus you will live. But if you don’t give her back, know that you will surely die along with all who belong to you.” ⁸ Early in the morning Abimelech summoned all his servants. When he told them about all these things, they were terrified. ⁹ Abimelech summoned Abraham and said to him, “What have you done to us? What sin did I commit against you that would cause you to bring such great guilt on me and my kingdom? You have done things to me that should not be done!” 1 ⁰ Then Abimelech asked Abraham, “What prompted you to do this thing?” 1 ¹ Abraham replied, “Because I thought, ‘Surely no one fears God in this place. They will kill me because of my wife.’ 1 ² What’s more, she is indeed my sister, my father’s daughter, but not my mother’s daughter. She became my wife. 1 ³ When God made me wander from my father’s house, I told her, ‘This is what you can do to show your loyalty to me: Every place we go, say about me, “He is my brother.”’” 1 ⁴ So Abimelech gave sheep, cattle, and male and female servants to Abraham. He also gave his wife Sarah back to him. 1 ⁵ Then Abimelech said, “Look, my land is before you; live wherever you please.” 1 ⁶ To Sarah he said, “Look, I have given 1 ,000 pieces of silver to your ‘brother.’ This is compensation for you so that you will stand vindicated before all who are with you.” 1 ⁷ Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelech, as well as his wife and female slaves so that they were able to have children. 1 ⁸ For the Lord had caused infertility to strike every woman in the household of Abimelech because he took Sarah, Abraham’s wife.

³ Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. ⁴ For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love. ⁵ He did this by predestining us to adoption as his legal heirs through Jesus Christ, according to the pleasure of his will— ⁶ to the praise of the glory of his grace that he has freely bestowed on us in his dearly loved Son. ¹ From Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, to the saints [in Ephesus], the faithful in Christ Jesus. ² Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ! ⁷ In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our offenses, according to the riches of his grace ⁸ that he lavished on us in all wisdom and insight. ⁹ He did this when he revealed to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 1 ⁰ toward the administration of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ—the things in heaven and the things on earth. 1 ¹ In Christ we too have been claimed as God’s own possession, since we were predestined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to the counsel of his will 1 ² so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, would be to the praise of his glory. 1 ³ And when you heard the word of truth (the gospel of your salvation)—when you believed in Christ—you were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit, 1 ⁴ who is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory. 1 ⁵ For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, 1 ⁶ I do not cease to give thanks for you when I remember you in my prayers. 1 ⁷ I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, will give you spiritual wisdom and revelation in your growing knowledge of him, 1 8 —since the eyes of your heart have been enlightened—so that you can know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 1 ⁹ and what is the incomparable greatness of his power toward us who believe, as displayed in the exercise of his immense strength. 2 ⁰ This power he exercised in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms 2 ¹ far above every rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 2 ² And God put all things under Christ’s feet, and gave him to the church as head over all things. 2 ³ Now the church is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.