Mass Readings For June 28, 2024 – Friday, Memorial of Saint Irenaeus

Abraham and the men who had visited him by the Terebinth of Mamre
set out from there and looked down toward Sodom;
Abraham was walking with them, to see them on their way.
The LORD reflected: “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do,
now that he is to become a great and populous nation,
and all the nations of the earth are to find blessing in him?
Indeed, I have singled him out
that he may direct his children and his household after him
to keep the way of the LORD
by doing what is right and just,
so that the LORD may carry into effect for Abraham
the promises he made about him.”
Then the LORD said:
“The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great,
and their sin so grave,
that I must go down and see whether or not their actions
fully correspond to the cry against them that comes to me.
I mean to find out.”

While the two men walked on farther toward Sodom,
the LORD remained standing before Abraham.
Then Abraham drew nearer to him and said:
“Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty?
Suppose there were fifty innocent people in the city;
would you wipe out the place, rather than spare it
for the sake of the fifty innocent people within it?
Far be it from you to do such a thing,
to make the innocent die with the guilty,
so that the innocent and the guilty would be treated alike!
Should not the judge of all the world act with justice?”
The LORD replied,
“If I find fifty innocent people in the city of Sodom,
I will spare the whole place for their sake.”
Abraham spoke up again:
“See how I am presuming to speak to my Lord,
though I am but dust and ashes!
What if there are five less than fifty innocent people?
Will you destroy the whole city because of those five?”
He answered, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.”
But Abraham persisted, saying, “What if only forty are found there?”

In the tenth month of the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign,
on the tenth day of the month,
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and his whole army
advanced against Jerusalem, encamped around it,
and built siege walls on every side.
The siege of the city continued until the eleventh year of Zedekiah.
On the ninth day of the fourth month,
when famine had gripped the city,
and the people had no more bread,
the city walls were breached.
Then the king and all the soldiers left the city by night
through the gate between the two walls
that was near the king’s garden.
Since the Chaldeans had the city surrounded,
they went in the direction of the Arabah.
But the Chaldean army pursued the king
and overtook him in the desert near Jericho,
abandoned by his whole army.

The king was therefore arrested and brought to Riblah
to the king of Babylon, who pronounced sentence on him.
He had Zedekiah’s sons slain before his eyes.
Then he blinded Zedekiah, bound him with fetters,
and had him brought to Babylon.On the seventh day of the fifth month
(this was in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar,
king of Babylon),
Nebuzaradan, captain of the bodyguard,
came to Jerusalem as the representative
of the king of Babylon.
He burned the house of the Lord,
the palace of the king, and all the houses of Jerusalem;
every large building was destroyed by fire.
Then the Chaldean troops who were with the captain of the guard
tore down the walls that surrounded Jerusalem.

Then Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard,
led into exile the last of the people remaining in the city,
and those who had deserted to the king of Babylon,
and the last of the artisans.
But some of the country’s poor, Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard,
left behind as vinedressers and farmers.