Friday, week 2 of Lent

Israel, that is, Jacob,
loved Joseph more than all his other sons,
because he was the son of his old age,
and he made him a richly ornamented tunic.
Seeing that he preferred Joseph over them,
his other sons began to hate him,
and could no longer speak to him without hostility.

Joseph’s brothers had gone to Shechem
to graze their father’s flock.
Israel said to Joseph:
“Aren’t your brothers grazing the flock at Shechem?
Go, find them for me!”
Joseph found them at Dothan.
They saw him from afar and, before he came near them,
they plotted to kill him.
They said to one another:
“Here comes the master of dreams!
Now is the time, let’s kill him,
and throw him into one of these cisterns.
We’ll say that a wild animal has devoured him,
and then we’ll see what his dreams were all about!”
But Reuben heard them, and wanted to rescue him from their hands.
He said to them:
“Let’s not take his life.”
And he added:
“Do not shed blood:
throw him into this cistern in the desert,
but do not lay a hand on him.”
He intended to rescue him from their hands
and bring him back to his father.

As soon as Joseph joined his brothers,
they stripped him of his tunic,
the richly ornamented tunic he wore,
they seized him and threw him into the cistern,
which was empty and had no water.
They then sat down to eat.
Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites
coming from Gilead.
Their camels were loaded with spices,
balm, and myrrh
that they were carrying down to Egypt.
Then Judah said to his brothers:
“What profit is there in killing our brother
and hiding his death?
Let’s sell him instead to the Ishmaelites
and not lay our hands on him,
for he is our brother,
our own flesh.”
His brothers agreed.
Some Midianite merchants were passing by;
they pulled Joseph up out of the cistern,
they sold him for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites,
and they took him to Egypt.

– The word of the Lord.

Seek the Lord and his power,
remember the wonders he has done,
you, the offspring of Abraham his servant,
the children of Jacob, whom he has chosen.

He called down famine on the land,
depriving them of all provisions.
But he sent a man ahead of them,
Joseph, who was sold as a slave.

His feet were put in chains,
his neck was bound in iron;
he suffered for the word of the Lord,
until the day his prediction came true.

The king ordered that he be released,
the ruler of nations set him free.
He made him master of his house,
the ruler of all his possessions.

At that time,
Jesus said to the chief priests and elders of the people:
“Listen to this parable:
A man was the owner of an estate;
he planted a vineyard,
put a fence around it,
dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower.
Then he leased the vineyard to tenants,
and went on a journey.
When the harvest time drew near,
he sent his servants to the tenants
to collect his share of the crop.
But the tenants seized the servants,
beat one,
killed another,
and stoned a third.
Again, the owner sent other servants
more numerous than the first;
but they were treated in the same way.
Finally, he sent his son to them,
saying to himself:
‘They will respect my son.’
But when the tenants saw the son, they said among themselves:
‘Here is the heir: come! Let's kill him,
and we will have his inheritance!’
They seized him,
threw him out of the vineyard,
and killed him.
So, when the owner of the vineyard comes,
what will he do to those tenants?”
They answered:
“He will put those wretches to a miserable death.
He will lease the vineyard to other tenants,
who will give him his share of the crop at the proper season.”
Jesus said to them:
“Have you never read in the Scriptures:
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this is the Lord’s doing,
it is wonderful in our eyes!
Therefore I tell you:
The kingdom of God will be taken from you
and given to a people
who will bear its fruit.”

When the chief priests and the Pharisees
heard Jesus’ parables,
they realized that he was speaking about them.
While they were looking for a way to arrest him,
they were afraid of the crowds,
because they regarded him as a prophet.

– Let us acclaim the word of God.