Reading 1, Ecclesiastes 1:2-11
2 Sheer futility, Qoheleth says. Sheer futility: everything is futile!
3 What profit can we show for all our toil, toiling under the sun?
4 A generation goes, a generation comes, yet the earth stands firm for ever.
5 The sun rises, the sun sets; then to its place it speeds and there it rises.
6 Southward goes the wind, then turns to the north; it turns and turns again; then back to its circling goes the wind.
7 Into the sea go all the rivers, and yet the sea is never filled, and still to their goal the rivers go.
8 All things are wearisome. No one can say that eyes have not had enough of seeing, ears their fill of hearing.
9 What was, will be again, what has been done, will be done again, and there is nothing new under the sun!
10 Take anything which people acclaim as being new: it existed in the centuries preceding us.
11 No memory remains of the past, and so it will be for the centuries to come — they will not be remembered by their successors.
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14, 17
3 You bring human beings to the dust, by saying, ‘Return, children of Adam.’
4 A thousand years are to you like a yesterday which has passed, like a watch of the night.
5 You flood them with sleep — in the morning they will be like growing grass:
6 in the morning it is blossoming and growing, by evening it is withered and dry.
12 Teach us to count up the days that are ours, and we shall come to the heart of wisdom.
13 Come back, Yahweh! How long must we wait? Take pity on your servants.
14 Each morning fill us with your faithful love, we shall sing and be happy all our days;
17 May the sweetness of the Lord be upon us, to confirm the work we have done!
7 Meanwhile Herod the tetrarch had heard about all that was going on; and he was puzzled, because some people were saying that John had risen from the dead,
8 others that Elijah had reappeared, still others that one of the ancient prophets had come back to life.
9 But Herod said, ‘John? I beheaded him. So who is this I hear such reports about?’ And he was anxious to see him.
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