Thursday of the second week of Advent

For I am the Lord thy God, who take thee by the hand, and say to thee: Fear not, I have helped thee. ¹⁴Fear not, thou worm of Jacob, you that are dead of Israel: I have helped thee, saith the Lord: and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel. ¹⁵I have made thee as a new thrashing wain, with teeth like a saw: thou shall thrash the mountains, and break them in pieces: and shalt make the hills as chaff. ¹⁶Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, in the Holy One of Israel thou shalt be joyful. ¹⁷The needy and the poor seek for waters, and there are none: their tongue hath been dry with thirst. I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. ¹⁸I will open rivers in the high bills, and fountains in the midst of the plains: I will turn the desert into pools of waters, and the impassable land into streams of waters. ¹⁹I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, and the thorn, and the myrtle, and the olive tree: I will set in the desert the fir tree, the elm, and the box tree together: ²⁰That they may see and know, and consider, and understand together that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.

¹I will extol thee, O God my king: and I will bless thy name for ever; yea, for ever and ever. ⁹The Lord is sweet to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. ¹⁰Let all thy works, O lord, praise thee: and let thy saints bless thee. ¹¹They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom: and shall tell of thy power: ¹²To make thy might known to the sons of men: and the glory of the magnificence of thy kingdom. ¹³Thy kingdom is a kingdom of all ages: and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words: and holy in all his works.

℟ The Lord is gracious and merciful: patient and plenteous in mercy.

Amen I say to you, there hath not risen among them that are born of women a greater than John the Baptist: yet he that is the lesser in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. ¹²And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent bear it away. ¹³For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John: ¹⁴And if you will receive it, he is Elias that is to come. ¹⁵He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.