Reading 1, Exodus 32:7-14
7 Yahweh then said to Moses, ‘Go down at once, for your people whom you brought here from Egypt have become corrupt.
8 They have quickly left the way which I ordered them to follow. They have cast themselves a metal calf, worshipped it and offered sacrifice to it, shouting, “Israel, here is your God who brought you here from Egypt!” ‘
9 Yahweh then said to Moses, ‘I know these people; I know how obstinate they are!
10 So leave me now, so that my anger can blaze at them and I can put an end to them! I shall make a great nation out of you instead.’
11 Moses tried to pacify Yahweh his God. ‘Yahweh,’ he said, ‘why should your anger blaze at your people, whom you have brought out of Egypt by your great power and mighty hand?
12 Why should the Egyptians say, “He brought them out with evil intention, to slaughter them in the mountains and wipe them off the face of the earth?” Give up your burning wrath; relent over this disaster intended for your people.
13 Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to whom you swore by your very self and made this promise: “I shall make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven, and this whole country of which I have spoken, I shall give to your descendants, and it will be their heritage for ever.”
14 Yahweh then relented over the disaster which he had intended to inflict on his people.
Responsorial Psalm, Psalms 106:19-20, 21-22, 23
19 At Horeb they made a calf, bowed low before cast metal;
20 they exchanged their glory for the image of a grass-eating bull.
21 They forgot the God who was saving them, who had done great deeds in Egypt,
22 such wonders in the land of Ham, such awesome deeds at the Sea of Reeds.
23 He thought of putting an end to them, had not Moses, his chosen one, taken a stand in the breach and confronted him, to turn his anger away from destroying them.
Gospel, John 5:31-47
31 Were I to testify on my own behalf, my testimony would not be true;
32 but there is another witness who speaks on my behalf, and I know that his testimony is true.
33 You sent messengers to John, and he gave his testimony to the truth-
34 not that I depend on human testimony; no, it is for your salvation that I mention it.
35 John was a lamp lit and shining and for a time you were content to enjoy the light that he gave.
36 But my testimony is greater than John’s: the deeds my Father has given me to perform, these same deeds of mine testify that the Father has sent me.
37 Besides, the Father who sent me bears witness to me himself. You have never heard his voice, you have never seen his shape,
38 and his word finds no home in you because you do not believe in the one whom he has sent.
39 You pore over the scriptures, believing that in them you can find eternal life; it is these scriptures that testify to me,
40 and yet you refuse to come to me to receive life!
41 Human glory means nothing to me.
42 Besides, I know you too well: you have no love of God in you.
43 I have come in the name of my Father and you refuse to accept me; if someone else should come in his own name you would accept him.
44 How can you believe, since you look to each other for glory and are not concerned with the glory that comes from the one God?
45 Do not imagine that I am going to accuse you before the Father: you have placed your hopes on Moses, and Moses will be the one who accuses you.
46 If you really believed him you would believe me too, since it was about me that he was writing;
47 but if you will not believe what he wrote, how can you believe what I say?
