OLD TESTAMENT (Second Reading)

A Reading from the Book of Job

Then Job answered and said:

Oh, would that my words were written down! 

Would that they were inscribed in a record: 

     that with an iron chisel and with lead 
 they were cut in the rock forever!

As for me, I know that my vindicator lives, 

     and that he will at last stand forth upon the dust. 

This will happen when my skin has been stripped off,

     and from my flesh I will see God:

     I will see for myself,

     my own eyes, not another’s, will behold him:

     my inmost being is consumed with longing.

The Word of the Lord