Thursday of the 21st week of Ordinary Time

7As a result, we were consoled in you, brothers, in the midst of all our difficulties and tribulations, through your faith. 8For we now live so that you may stand firm in the Lord. 9For what thanks would we be able to repay to God because of you, for all the joy with which we rejoice over you before our God? 10For night and day, ever more abundantly, we are praying that we may see your face, and that we may complete those things that are lacking in your faith. 11But may God our Father himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you. 12And may the Lord multiply you, and make you abound in your charity toward one another and toward all, just as we also do toward you, 13in order to confirm your hearts without blame, in sanctity, before God our Father, unto the return of our Lord Jesus Christ, with all his saints. Amen.

3And, lest man be turned aside in humiliation, you have said: Be converted, O sons of men.

4For a thousand years before your eyes are like the days of yesterday, which have passed by, and they are like a watch of the night,

5which was held for nothing: so their years shall be.

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12be numbered? So make known your right hand, along with men learned in heart, in wisdom.

13Return, O Lord, how long? And may you be persuaded on behalf of your servants.

14We were filled in the morning with your mercy, and we exulted and delighted all our days.

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17And may the splendor of the Lord our God be upon us. And so, direct the works of our hands over us; direct even the work of our hands.

42Therefore, be vigilant. For you do not know at what hour your Lord will return. 43But know this: if only the father of the family knew at what hour the thief would arrive, he would certainly keep vigil and not permit his house to be broken into. 44For this reason, you also must be prepared, for you do not know at what hour the Son of man will return. 45Consider this: who is a faithful and prudent servant, who has been appointed by his lord over his family, to give them their portion in due time? 46Blessed is that servant, if, when his lord has arrived, he shall find him doing so. 47Amen I say to you, he shall appoint him over all of his goods. 48But if that evil servant has said in his heart, ‘My lord has been delayed in returning,’ 49and so, he begins to strike his fellow servants, and he eats and drinks with the inebriated: 50then the lord of that servant will arrive on a day that he does not expect, and at an hour that he does not know. 51And he shall separate him, and he shall place his portion with the hypocrites, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”