Daily Mass Readings for December 22, 2024: Gospel — Lc 1, 39-45

1 (4:1 4 ) But now slash yourself, daughter surrounded by soldiers! We are besieged! With a scepter they strike Israel’s ruler on the side of his face. 2 (5:1 ) As for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, seemingly insignificant among the clans of Judah— from you a king will emerge who will rule over Israel on my behalf, one whose origins are in the distant past. ³ So the Lord will hand the people of Israel over to their enemies until the time when the woman in labor gives birth. Then the rest of the king’s countrymen will return to be reunited with the people of Israel. ⁴ He will assume his post and shepherd the people by the Lord’s strength, by the sovereign authority of the Lord his God. They will live securely, for at that time he will be honored even in the distant regions of the earth.

⁵ So when he came into the world, he said,“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me. ⁶ Whole burnt offerings and sin-offerings you took no delight in. ⁷ Then I said, ‘Here I am: I have come—it is written of me in the scroll of the book—to do your will, O God.’” ⁸ When he says above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sin-offerings you did not desire nor did you take delight in them” (which are offered according to the law), ⁹ then he says, “Here I am: I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first to establish the second. 1 ⁰ By his will we have been made holy through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.