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Readings for Lent and Easter

Short readings from throughout the Bible that focus on the meaning and events of Easter.

Duration: 47 days

Matthew 21:1-16

Encounters at Jerusalem

Chapter 21

The Entry into Jerusalem.^[a] ¹When they drew near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent off two disciples, ²saying to them, “Go to the village directly ahead of you, and as soon as you enter you will find a tethered donkey and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. ³If anyone says anything to you, tell them, ‘The Lord needs them.’ Then he will let you have them at once.” ⁴This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the prophet:

⁵“Say to the daughter of Zion:^[b]
‘Behold, your king is coming to you,
humble and riding on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’ ”

⁶The disciples went off and did as Jesus had instructed them. ⁷They brought the donkey and the colt, and laid their cloaks on their backs, and he sat on them.^[c] ⁸A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹The crowds that preceded him and those that followed kept shouting:

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!^[d]
Hosanna in the highest!”

¹⁰And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was filled with excitement. “Who is this?” the people asked, ¹¹and the crowds replied, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

¹²Jesus Cleanses the Temple.^[e] Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those whom he found buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. ¹³He said to them, “It is written:

‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’
but you are making it a den of thieves.”^[f]

¹⁴The blind and the crippled came to him in the temple, and he cured them. ¹⁵But when the chief priests and the scribes witnessed the wonderful things he was performing and heard the children crying out in the temple area, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they became infuriated ¹⁶and said to him, “Do you hear what they are saying?” Jesus replied, “Yes. Have you never read the text:

‘Out of the mouths of infants and babies who are nursing
you have received fitting praise’?”

Footnotes

Matthew 21:1 One of the key events in the life of Jesus. He seemed to be fulfilling what was most attractive in the Old Testament prophecies: here is the Messiah in the midst of his people, God’s messenger in the midst of the human race, and joyous shouts of acclamation arise on every side. Hosanna means “Grant salvation!” but it is above all a shout of applause. Jesus allows himself to be acclaimed as the “Son of David,” the Savior from the royal line, the figure that the believing people had, generation after generation, tried to picture for themselves in light of the promise made to David (2 Sam 7). But the sumptuous display in the courts of princes was of quite a different nature. Once again, Jesus rejects all dreams of prestige; here he is, in the midst of the people, riding the beast of the poor, the donkey, and linking himself in this manner with the Davidic tradition.
Matthew 21:5 Daughter of Zion: i.e., Jerusalem, which rises on Mount Zion; the citation is from Isa 62:11. There follows the prophecy of Zec 9:9, which describes the Messiah, a humble and meek king taking peaceful possession of his kingdom.
Matthew 21:7 He sat on them [the cloaks]: from Mark (11:2) and Luke (19:30), we know that Jesus rode on the colt. It was customary for a mother donkey to follow her offspring closely. Hence Matthew mentions two animals.
Matthew 21:9 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord: taken from Ps 118:26f, this phrase does not express the customary greeting directed at the pilgrim who had reached the Holy City. Like the Hosanna mentioned above, it is an acclamation to the Messiah who is taking possession of his kingdom.
Matthew 21:12 As if to stress the authority of the Messiah, the evangelist follows up the entry into Jerusalem with Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. He then adds the acclamation of the children, in whom he sees the fulfillment of another prophecy. John, on the other hand, places the cleansing of the temple at the beginning of Christ’s public ministry. While not ruling out two distinct cleansings, scholars usually prefer the chronology of John, since the Synoptics have chosen to assign the whole of Christ’s activity in Judea to the last period of his life.
Matthew 21:13 Jesus combines two Old Testament prophecies: Isa 56:7 (“My house shall be called a house of prayer”) and Jer 7:11 (“Has this house, which bears my name become in your eyes a den of thieves?”).

New Catholic Bible (NCB)