The Rite of Penance includes a celebration of the Word. As this does not take place during Mass, the order of readings needs not be as in the Liturgy of the Word at Mass. If there are several readings, a psalm or other appropriate song or a period of silence should intervene between them. If there is only one reading, it is preferable that it be from a Gospel.
The following readings are proposed as a help for priests and others involved in the selection of readings. For diversity, and according to pastoral needs of the group that is celebrating, other readings may be selected. Suggestions for presentation of the Word during the Rite of Penance will be found in the celebrant’s edition of the Rite.
| First Reading from the Old Testament | ||
| Genesis 3:1–19 | She took some of its fruit and ate it. | |
| Genesis 4: 1–15 | Cain set on his brother Abel and killed him | |
| Genesis 18:17–33 | The Lord said. ‘I will not destroy the whole city for the sake of ten just men.’ | |
| Exodus 17:1–17 | They put the Lord to the test by saying, ‘Is the Lord with us, or not?’ | |
| Exodus 20:1–21 | I am the Lord your God… you shall have no other gods. | |
| Deuteronomy 6:4–9 | You shall love the Lord you God with all you heart. | |
| Deuteronomy 9:7–19 | Your people have been quick to leave the way I marked out for them. | |
| Deuteronomy 30:15–20 | See, today I set before you life and prosperity, death and disaster. | |
| 2 Samuel 12:1–9. 13 | David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ Then Nathan said to David, ‘The Lord, for his part, forgives your sin, you are not to die.’ | |
| 10 | Nehemiah 9:1–20 | The Israelites assembled for a fast and confessed their sins. |
| 11 | Wisdom 1:1–16 | Love virtue, since Wisdom will never make its way into a crafty soul nor stay in a body that is in debt to sin. |
| 12 | Wisdom 5:1–16 | The hope of the godless is like chaff carried on the wind, but the virtuous live for ever. |
| 13 | Ecclesiasticus 28:1–7 | Forgive your neighbour the hurt he does you, and when you pray, your sins will be forgiven. |
| 14 | Isaiah 1:2–6. 15–18 | I reared sons, I brought them up, but the have rebelled against me. |
| 15 | Isaiah 5:1–7 | My friend had a vineyard. He expected it to yield grapes, but sour grapes were all that it gave. |
| 16 | Isaiah 43: 22–28 | I it is, I it is, who must blot out everything. |
| 17 | Isaiah 53:1–12 | The Lord burdened him with the sins of all of us. |
| 18 | Isaiah 55:1–11 | Let the wicked man abandon his way. Let him turn back to the Lord who will take pity on him, for he is rich in forgiving. |
| 19 | Isaiah 58:1–11 | If you give your bread to the hungry, and relief to the oppressed, your light will rise in the darkness, and your shadows become like the noon. |
| 20 | Isaiah 59:1–4. 9–15 | Your iniquities have made a gulf between you and your God. |
| 21 | Jeremiah 2:1–13 | My people have committed a double crime: they have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, only to dig cisterns for themselves, leaky cisterns that hold no water. |
| 22 | Jeremiah 7:21–26 | Listen to my voice, then I will be your God and you shall be my people. |
| 23 | Ezekiel 11:14–21 | I will remove the heart of stone from their bodies and give them a heart of flesh instead, so that they will keep my laws. |
| 24 | Ezekiel 18:20–32 | If the wicked man renounces all his sins, he will certainly live; he will not die. |
| 25 | Ezekiel 36:23–28 | I shall pour clean water over you; I shall put my spirit in you and make you keep my laws. |
| 26 | Hosea 2:18–25 | When that day comes I will make a treaty on her behalf. |
| 27 | Hosea 11:1–11 | I took them in my arms; yet they have not understood that I was the one looking after them. |
| 28 | Hosea 14:2–10 | Israel, come back to the Lord your God. |
| 29 | Joel 2:12–19 | Come back to me with all your heart. |
| 30 | Micah 6:1–15 | Act justly, love tenderly, and walk humbly with your God. |
| 31 | Micah 7:2–7. 18–20 | Once more have pity on us, tread down our faults, to the bottom of the sea throw all our sins. |
| 32 | Zechariah 1:1–6 | Return to me, and I will return to you. |
| Responsorial Psalm | ||
| Ps 12 r. 6 | O Lord, I trust in your merciful love. | |
| Ps 24 r.16 | Turn to me, Lord, and have mercy. | |
| Ps 30: 1–6 r. 6 | It is you who will redeem me, Lord. | |
| Ps 31 r.5 | Lord, forgive the wrong I have done. | |
| Ps 35 r.8 | How precious is your love, O Lord. | |
| Ps 49:7–8. 14–23 r.23 | I will show God’s salvation to the upright. | |
| Ps 50 r. 14 | Give me again the joy of your help, | |
| Ps 72 r. 28 | I have made the Lord my God my refuge. or To be near God is my happiness. | |
| Ps 89 r.14 | Fill us with your love, O Lord, and we shall rejoice. | |
| 10 | Ps 94 r.8 | O that today you would listen to his voice: Harden not you hearts. |
| 11 | Ps 118: 1. 10–13. 15–16 r.1 | They are happy who follow God’s law. |
| 12 | Ps 122 r.2 | Our eyes are fixed on the Lord. |
| 13 | Ps 129 r.7 | With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption. |
| 14 | Ps 138: 1–18. 23–24 r.1 or 23 | O Lord, you search me and you know me. or or O search me, God, and know my heart. |
| 15 | Ps 142:1–11 r.10 | Teach me to do your will, my God. |
| New Testament Reading | ||
| Romans 3:22–26 | Jew and pagan alike are justified through the free gift of God’s grace by being redeemed in Christ Jesus. | |
| Romans 5:6–11 | We are filled with joyful trust in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have already gained our reconciliation. | |
| Romans 6:2–13 | You must consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus. | |
| Romans 6:16–23 | The wage paid by sin is death; the present given by God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. | |
| Romans 7:14–25 | What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! | |
| Romans 12:1–2. 9–19 | Let your behaviour change, modelled by your new mind. | |
| Romans 13:8–14 | Let us give up all the things we prefer to do under cover of dark; let us arm ourselves and appear in the light. | |
| 2 Corinthians 5:17–21 | God in Christ was reconciling the world to himself. | |
| Galatians 5:16–24 | You cannot belong to Christ Jesus unless you crucify all self-indulgent passions and desires. | |
| 10 | Ephesians 2:1–10 | God loved us with so much love that, when we were dead through our sins, he brought us life with Christ. |
| 11 | Ephesians 4:1–3. 17–32 | Your mind must be renewed by a spiritual revolution so that you can put on your new self. |
| 12 | Ephesians 5:1–14 | You were darkness once, but now you are light in the Lord; be like children of light. |
| 13 | Ephesians 6:10–18 | You must rely on God’s armour, or you will not be able to put up any resistance when the worst happens. |
| 14 | Colossians 3:1–10. 12–17 | Since you have been brought back to true life with Christ, you must look for the things that are in heaven. That is why you must kill everything in you that belongs only to earthly life. |
| 15 | Hebrews 12:1–5 | In the fight against sin, you have not yet had to keep fighting to the point of death. |
| 16 | James 1:22–27 | You must do what the word tells you, and not just listen to it. |
| 17 | James 2:14–26 | The case of someone who has never done a single good act but claims that he has faith. |
| 18 | James 3:1–12 | The only man who could reach perfection would be someone who never said anything wrong. |
| 19 | 1 Peter 1:13–23 | The ransom that was paid to free you was not paid in anything corruptible, neither in silver nor gold, but in the precious blood of a lamb without stain, namely Christ. |
| 20 | 2 Peter 1:3–11 | You have been called and chosen: work all the harder to justify it. |
| 21 | 1 John 1:5–10; 2:1–2 | If we acknowledge our sins, then God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and purify us from everything that is wrong. |
| 22 | 1 John 2:3–11 | Anyone who hates his brother is still in the dark. |
| 23 | 1 John 3:1–24 | We have passed out of death and into life, and of this we can be sure because we love our brothers. |
| 24 | 1 John 4:16–21 | God is love; and anyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him. |
| 25 | Apocalypse 2:1–5 | Repent, and do as you used to at first. |
| 26 | Apocalypse 3:14–22 | Since you are neither cold nor hot, but only lukewarm, I will spit you out of my mouth. |
| 27 | Apocalypse 20:11–15 | Every one was judged according to the way in which he had lived. |
| 28 | Apocalypse 21:1–8 | It is the rightful inheritance of the one who proves victorious; and I will be his God and he a son to me. |
| Gospel | ||
| Matthew 3:1–12 | Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand. | |
| Matthew 4:12–17 | Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand. | |
| Matthew 5:1–12 | Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up to the hill and taught his disciples. | |
| Matthew 5:13–16 | Your light must shine in the sight of men. | |
| Matthew 5:17–47 | But I say this to you. | |
| Matthew 9:1–8 | Courage, my child, your sins are forgiven. | |
| Matthew 9:9–13 | I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners. | |
| Matthew 18:15–20 | You have won back your brother. | |
| Matthew 18:21–35 | This is how my heavenly Father will deal with you unless you each forgive your brother from your heart. | |
| 10 | Matthew 25:31–46 | In so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me. |
| 11 | Matthew 26:69–75 | Peter went outside and wept bitterly. |
| 12 | Mark 12:28–34 | The first of all the commandments. |
| 13 | Luke 7:36–50 | Her sins, her many sins, must have been forgiven her, or she would not have shown great love. |
| 14 | Luke 13:1–5 | Unless you repent you will all perish as they did. |
| 15 | Luke 15:1–10 | There will be rejoicing in heaven over one repentant sinner. |
| 16 | Luke 15:11–32 | While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him tenderly. |
| 17 | Luke 17:1–4 | If your brother wrongs you seven times a day and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I am sorry’, you must forgive him. |
| 18 | Luke 18:9–14 | God, be merciful to me, a sinner. |
| 19 | Luke 19:1–10 | The Son of Man has come to seek out and save what was lost. |
| 20 | Luke 23:39–43 | Today you will be with me in paradise. |
| 21 | John 8:1–11 | Go away, and don’t sin any more. |
| 22 | John 8:31–36 | Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. |
| 23 | John 15:1–8 | Every branch in me that bears no fruit he cuts away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes to make it bear even more. |
| 24 | John 15:9–14 | You are my friends if you do what I command you. |
| 25 | John 19:13–37 | They will look on the one whom they have pierced. |
| 26 | John 20:19–23 | Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven. |
