Thursday of week 1 in Ordinary Time

First reading

Hebrews 3:7-14
Keep encouraging one another
The Holy Spirit says: If only you would listen to him today; do not harden your hearts, as happened in the Rebellion, on the Day of Temptation in the wilderness, when your ancestors challenged me and tested me, though they had seen what I could do for forty years. That was why I was angry with that generation and said: How unreliable these people who refuse to grasp my ways! And so, in anger, I swore that not one would reach the place of rest I had for them. Take care, brothers, that there is not in any one of your community a wicked mind, so unbelieving as to turn away from the living God. Every day, as long as this ‘today’ lasts, keep encouraging one another so that none of you is hardened by the lure of sin, because we shall remain co-heirs with Christ only if we keep a grasp on our first confidence right to the end.
Responsorial Psalm
Psalm 94(95):6-11

R. (8) If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

6 Come let us adore and fall down: and weep before the Lord that made us.

7c For he is the Lord our God: and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.

R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

8 Today if you shall hear his voice, harden not your hearts:

9 As in the provocation, according to the day of temptation in the wilderness: where your fathers tempted me, they proved me, and saw my works.

R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

10 Forty years long was I offended with that generation, and I said: These always err in heart.

11 And these men have not known my ways: so I swore in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest.

R. If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

Gospel Acclamation Ps118:88
Alleluia, alleluia!
Because of your love give me life,
and I will do your will.
Alleluia!
Gospel

Mark 1:40-45
The leprosy left the man at once, and he was cured
A leper came to Jesus and pleaded on his knees: ‘If you want to’ he said ‘you can cure me.’ Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. ‘Of course I want to!’ he said. ‘Be cured!’ And the leprosy left him at once and he was cured. Jesus immediately sent him away and sternly ordered him, ‘Mind you say nothing to anyone, but go and show yourself to the priest, and make the offering for your healing prescribed by Moses as evidence of your recovery.’ The man went away, but then started talking about it freely and telling the story everywhere, so that Jesus could no longer go openly into any town, but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived. Even so, people from all around would come to him.