And God blessed Noe and his sons. And he said to them: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth.2 And let the fear and dread of you be upon all the beasts of the earth, and upon all the fowls of the air, and all that move upon the earth: all the fishes of the sea are delivered into your hand.3 And every thing that moveth and liveth shall be meat for you: even as the green herbs have I delivered them all to you:4 Saving that flesh with blood you shall not eat.5 For I will require the blood of your lives at the hand of every beast, and at the hand of man, at the hand of every man, and of his brother, will I require the life of man.6 Whosoever shall shed man’s blood, his blood shall be shed: for man was made to the image of God.7 But increase you and multiply, and go upon the earth, and fill it.8 Thus also said God to Noe, and to his sons with him,9 Behold I will establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you:10 And with every living soul that is with you, as well in all birds as in cattle and beasts of the earth, that are come forth out of the ark, and in all the beasts of the earth.11 I will establish my covenant with you, and all flesh shall be no more destroyed with the waters of a flood, neither shall there be from henceforth a flood to waste the earth.12 And God said: This is the sign of the covenant which I give between me and you, and to every living soul that is with you, for perpetual generations.13 I will set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be the sign of a covenant between me, and between the earth.
XXXI. On which account God also calls Bezaleel by name, and says that " He will give him wisdom and knowledge, and that He will make him the builder and the architect of all the things which are in his tabernacle ;" that is to say, of all the works of the soul, when he had up to this time done no work which anyone could praise — we must say, therefore, that God impressed this figure also on the soul, after the fashion of an approved coin. And we shall know what the impression is if we previously examine the interpretation of the name. Now, Exodus xxxl 2. Bezaleel, being interpreted, means God in his shadow. But the shadow of God is his word, winch he used like an instrument when he was making the world. And this shadow, and, as it were, model, is the archetype of other things. For, as God is himself the model of that image which he has now called a shadow, so also that image is the model of other things, as he showed when he commenced giving the law to the Israelites, and said, "And God made man according to the image of God," as the image was modelled according to God, and as man was modelled according to the image, which thus received the power and character of the model.
Responsorial Psalm — Psalm 102:16-18, 19-21, 29 and 22-23
Ps 101:16-18
And the Gentiles shall fear thy name, O Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory.17 For the Lord hath built up Sion: and he shall be seen in his glory.18 He hath had regard to the prayer of the humble: and he hath not despised their petition.19 Let these things be written unto another generation: and the people that shall be created shall praise the Lord:20 Because he hath looked forth from his high sanctuary: from heaven the Lord hath looked upon the earth.21 That he might hear the groans of them that are in fetters: that he might release the children of the slain:29 The children of thy servants shall continue: and their seed shall be directed for ever.22 That they may declare the name of the Lord in Sion: and his praise in Jerusalem;23 When the people assemble together, and kings, to serve the Lord.
But it is not thus that the prophets and the apostles have told us that the world was made by God merely appearing and approaching matter. They did not even mention any matter but [said] that Wisdom was first set up, the beginning of his ways, for his works. Then that the Word was produced, "through whom all things were made, and without whom nothing was made." Indeed, "by the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all their hosts by the breath of his mouth." He is the Lord's right hand, indeed his two hands, by which he worked and constructed the universe. "For," he says, "the heavens are the works of your hands." Wherewith "he has measured out the heaven, and the earth with a span." Do not be willing so to cover God with flattery, as to contend that he produced by his mere appearance and simple approach so many vast substances, instead of rather forming them by his own energies. For this is proved by Jeremiah when he says, "God has made the earth by his power; he has established the world by his wisdom and has stretched out the heaven by his understanding." These are the energies by the stress of which he made this universe. His glory is greater if he labored.
In like manner David says, "The heavens, the works of your hands, shall themselves perish. For even as a garment shall he change them, and they shall be changed." Now to be changed is to fall from that primitive state that they lose while undergoing the change. "And the stars too shall fall from heaven, even as a fig tree casts its green figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind." "The mountains shall melt like wax at the presence of the Lord"; that is, "when he rises to shake terribly the earth." "But I will dry up the pools"; and "they shall seek water, and they shall find none." Even "the sea shall be no more." Now if any person should go so far as to suppose that all these passages ought to be spiritually interpreted, he will still be unable to deprive them of the true accomplishment of those issues that must come to pass just as they have been written. For all figures of speech necessarily arise out of real things, not out of chimerical ones; because nothing is capable of imparting anything of its own for a similitude, except it actually be that very thing that it imparts in the similitude. I return therefore to the principle that defines that all things that have come from nothing shall return at last to nothing.
And Jesus went out, and his disciples, into the towns of Caesarea Philippi. And in the way, he asked his disciples, saying to them: Whom do men say that I am?28 Who answered him, saying: John the Baptist; but some Elias, and others as one of the prophets.29 Then he saith to them: But whom do you say that I am? Peter answering said to him: Thou art the Christ.30 And he strictly charged them that they should not tell any man of him.31 And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the ancients and by the high priests, and the scribes, and be killed: and after three days rise again.32 And he spoke the word openly. And Peter taking him, began to rebuke him.†33 Who turning about and seeing his disciples, threatened Peter, saying: Go behind me, Satan, because thou savorest not the things that are of God, but that are of men.†
(in Matt. Tom. xii. 15) Or else, Mark and Luke, as they wrote that Peter answered, Thou art the Christ, without adding what is put down in Matthew, the Son of the living God, so they omitted to relate the blessing which was conferred on this confession. It goes on, And he charged them that they should tell no man of him.
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.)