Reading 1, Acts 15:22-31

²² Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose delegates from among themselves to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas, known as Barsabbas, and Silas, both leading men in the brotherhood,

²³ and gave them this letter to take with them: 'The apostles and elders, your brothers, send greetings to the brothers of gentile birth in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia.

²⁴ We hear that some people coming from here, but acting without any authority from ourselves, have disturbed you with their demands and have unsettled your minds;

²⁵ and so we have decided unanimously to elect delegates and to send them to you with our well-beloved Barnabas and Paul,

²⁶ who have committed their lives to the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

²⁷ Accordingly we are sending you Judas and Silas, who will confirm by word of mouth what we have written.

²⁸ It has been decided by the Holy Spirit and by ourselves not to impose on you any burden beyond these essentials:

²⁹ you are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from illicit marriages. Avoid these, and you will do what is right. Farewell.'

³⁰ The party left and went down to Antioch, where they summoned the whole community and delivered the letter.

³¹ The community read it and were delighted with the encouragement it gave them.

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Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 57:8-9, 10-12

⁸ Awake, my glory, awake, lyre and harp, that I may awake the Dawn.

⁹ I will praise you among the peoples, Lord, I will make music for you among nations,

¹⁰ for your faithful love towers to heaven, your constancy to the clouds.

¹¹ Be exalted above the heavens, God! Your glory over all the earth!

Gospel, John 15:12-17

¹² This is my commandment: love one another, as I have loved you.

¹³ No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.

¹⁴ You are my friends, if you do what I command you.

¹⁵ I shall no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know the master's business; I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father.

¹⁶ You did not choose me, no, I chose you; and I commissioned you to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will last; so that the Father will give you anything you ask him in my name.

¹⁷ My command to you is to love one another.

May 2013

June 2013

The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) is a Catholic translation of the Bible published in 1985. The New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) has become the most widely used Roman Catholic Bible outside of the United States. It has the imprimatur of Cardinal George Basil Hume.

Like its predecessor, the Jerusalem Bible, the New Jerusalem Bible (NJB) version is translated "directly from the Hebrew, Greek or Aramaic." The 1973 French translation, the Bible de Jerusalem, is followed only "where the text admits to more than one interpretation." Introductions and notes, with some modifications, are taken from the Bible de Jerusalem.

Source: The Very Reverend Dom (Joseph) Henry Wansbrough, OSB, MA (Oxon), STL (Fribourg), LSS (Rome), a monk of Ampleforth Abbey and a biblical scholar. He was General Editor of the New Jerusalem Bible. "New Jerusalem Bible, Regular Edition", pg. v.

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