Readings for Lent and Easter

Jesus’ final entry into Jerusalem

21 ^1-3 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples ahead telling them, “Go into the village in front of you and you will at once find there an ass tethered, and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. Should anyone say anything to you, you are to say, ‘The Lord needs them’, and he will send them immediately.”

^4-5 All this happened to fulfil the prophet’s saying—‘Tell the daughter of Zion, Behold your king is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey’.

^6-9 So the disciples went off and followed Jesus’ instructions. They brought the ass and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and Jesus took his seat. Then most of the crowd spread their own cloaks on the road, while others cut down branches from the trees and spread them in his path. The crowds who went in front of him and the crowds who followed him all shouted, “God save the Son of David! ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ God save him from on high!”

^10-11 And as he entered Jerusalem a shock ran through the whole city. “Who is this?” men cried. “This is Jesus the prophet,” replied the crowd, “the man from Nazareth in Galilee!”

^12-13 Then Jesus went into the Temple and drove out all the buyers and sellers there. He overturned the tables of the money-changers and the benches of those who sold doves, crying—“It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’. But you have turned it into a ‘den of thieves!’”

^14-16 And there in the Temple the blind and the lame came to him and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things he had done, and that children were shouting in the Temple the words, “God save the Son of David”, they were highly indignant. “Can’t you hear what these children are saying?” they asked Jesus. “Yes,” he replied, “and haven’t you ever read the words, ‘Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants you have perfected praise’?”