Be comforted, be comforted, my people, saith your God.2 Speak ye to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her: for her evil is come to an end, her iniquity is forgiven: she hath received of the hand of the Lord double for all her sins.3 The voice of one crying in the desert: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the wilderness the paths of our God.4 Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough ways plain.5 And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh together shall see, that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken.6 The voice of one, saying: Cry. And I said: What shall I cry? All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the held.7 The grass is withered, and the dower is fallen, because the spirit of the Lord hath blown upon it. Indeed the people is grass:8 The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen: but the word of our Lord endureth for ever.9 Get thee up upon a high mountain, thou that bringest good tidings to Sion: lift up thy voice with strength, thou that bringest good tidings to Jerusalem: lift it up, fear not. Say to the cities of Juda: Behold your God:10 Behold the Lord God shall come with strength, and his arm shall rule: Behold his reward is with him and his work is before him.11 He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather together the lambs with his arm, and shall take them up in his bosom, and he himself shall carry them that are with young.
We must … be zealous in doing good, for all things are from him. [Isaiah] warns us, "Behold, the Lord comes, and his reward is before his face, to pay each person according to his work." He therefore urges us who believe in him with all our heart not to be lazy or careless in any good work. Let our glorying and our confidence be in him. Let us be subject to his will.
Responsorial Psalm — Psalm 96:1-2, 3 and 10ac, 11-12, 13
Ps 95:1-2
A canticle for David himself, when the house was built after the captivity. Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: sing to the Lord, all the earth.2 Sing ye to the Lord and bless his name: shew forth his salvation from day to day.3 Declare his glory among the Gentiles: his wonders among all people.10 Say ye among the Gentiles, the Lord hath reigned. For he hath corrected the world, which shall not be moved: he will judge the people with justice.11 Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, let the sea be moved, and the fulness thereof:12 The fields and all things that are in them shall be joyful. Then shall all the trees of the woods rejoice13 Before the face of the Lord, because he cometh: because he cometh to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with justice, and the people with his truth.
Then Trypho said, "We know that you quoted these because we asked you. But it does not appear to me that this Psalm which you quoted last from the words of David refers to any other than the Father and Maker of the heavens and earth. You, however, asserted that it referred to Him who suffered, whom you also are eagerly endeavouring to prove to be Christ."
And I answered, "Attend to me, I beseech you, while I speak of the statement which the Holy Spirit gave utterance to in this Psalm; and you shall know that I speak not sinfully, and that we are not really bewitched; for so you shall be enabled of yourselves to understand many other statements made by the Holy Spirit. 'Sing unto the Lord a new song; sing unto the Lord, all the earth: sing unto the Lord, and bless His name; show forth His salvation from day to day, His wonderful works among all people.' He bids the inhabitants of all the earth, who have known the mystery of this salvation, i.e., the suffering of Christ, by which He saved them, sing and give praises to God the Father of all things, and recognise that He is to be praised and feared, and that He is the Maker of heaven and earth, who effected this salvation in behalf of the human race, who also was crucified and was dead, and who was deemed worthy by Him (God) to reign over all the earth. As [is clearly seen] also by the land into which [He said] He would bring [your fathers]; [for He thus speaks]: 'This people [shall go a whoring after other gods], and shall forsake Me, and shall break my covenant which I made with them in that day; and I will forsake them, and will turn away My face from them; and they shall be devoured, and many evils and afflictions shall find them out; and they shall say in that day, Because the Lord my God is not amongst us, these misfortunes have found us out. And I shall certainly turn away My face from them in that day, on account of all the evils which they have committed, in that they have turned to other gods.'
And from the ninety-fifth (ninety-sixth) Psalm they have taken away this short saying of the words of David: "From the wood." For when the passage said, "Tell ye among the nations, the Lord hath reigned from the wood," they have left, "Tell ye among the nations, the Lord hath reigned." Now no one of your people has ever been said to have reigned as God and Lord among the nations, with the exception of Him only who was crucified, of whom also the Holy Spirit affirms in the same Psalm that He was raised again, and freed from [the grave], declaring that there is none like Him among the gods of the nations: for they are idols of demons.
What think you? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them should go astray: doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the mountains, and go to seek that which is gone astray?13 And if it so be that he find it: Amen I say to you, he rejoiceth more for that, than for the ninety-nine that went not astray.14 Even so it is not the will of your Father, who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.
But this exposition does not seem to agree with that which was said, If any one scandalizes one of these little ones; for the perfect man is not scandalized, nor does he perish. But he who thinks this the true exposition, says, that the mind of a righteous man is variable, and is sometimes offended, but not easily.
About CSB. A personal translation of the New Testament, rendered directly from the public-domain Greek in a literary style — not a scholarly critical edition, and not for liturgical or doctrinal authority. It is one reader's work, offered for enjoyment; where it matters, weigh it against an established translation. (Placeholder text — final wording to come.)